Daniel Eke Campaign Organisation says it will explore legal options to challenge the outcome of Thursday’s parallel primary elections in Abia.

Mr Eke, a U.S-based chartered accountant, was a governorship aspirant on the platform of APC in Abia.

The group stated that it would rely on the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended) and the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and other legal devices to redress alleged aberration that took place in Abia.

It maintained that the legal action would become imperative, if the national leadership of the party failed to take pragmatic steps to redress the anomaly.

It issued the threat in a statement on Monday and that the party had yet to produce a governorship candidate for 2023 in Abia.

It, therefore, urged the people of the state and Nigerians to “disregard the misleading, dangerous and pejorative claims.”

Two candidates emerged at the end of Thursday’s parallel elections by the party in the state.

While chairman Kingsley Ononogbu organised an indirect primary election that produced Ikechi Emenike as candidate, the Acho Obioma-led faction elected the former minister of mines and steel development, Sampson Ogah, allegedly by direct mode of primary.

In the two congresses, votes were allegedly allocated to all the contestants, including aspirants that had defected to other political parties.

Mr Eke was credited with 16 votes and 1953 votes, respectively, by each side. His campaign organisation described the development as “very laughable frivolities, pitiable and hysteric hallucination.”

It distanced Mr Eke from either of the groups, saying that the aspirant could not have participated in a phantom election and drew the attention of the party’s National Working Committee, INEC and the public to the fact that Mr Eke “was not communicated with the venue and mode of the purported primary election by those vested with the obligation to do so.”

It further explained that it amounted to illegality and abuse of process “to conduct any election without the consent of those who spent their hard earned money to purchase nomination forms and funding their campaigns.”

The organisation further said APC had no candidate for 2023 in Abia, until a fresh election was conducted in the state.

The group appealed to the party’s NWC “to without hesitation, fix a date to conduct a valid direct primary election, which shall comply strictly with Article 20.4 of the APC Constitution and Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended).”

(NAN)