I spent over N100m but still lost APC ticket… I won’t accept this – Imo assembly aspirant

Ezechukwu Obinna, an aspirant for the Ahiazu-Mbaise constituency seat in the Imo house of assembly, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of extorting aspirants through the sale of nomination and expression of interest forms.

Obinna also rejected the “imposed” candidate for the constituency.

In a viral video circulated on Wednesday, the aspirant expressed dissatisfaction with the conduct of the party’s primary process in the state.

According to him, he spent more than N10 million purchasing nomination forms and over N100 million campaigning for himself and the party.

“We were six aspirants that purchased form from Ahiazu-Mbaise and we spent over 10 million naira each in processing the forms. The party gave us hope that there would be an open primary,” he said.

Obinna alleged that while aspirants were preparing for the exercise, another candidate was announced without consultation or voting.

“While we were preparing ourselves for the exercise, we heard that a woman who failed house of representatives primary had been selected as the candidate for Ahiazu-Mbaise state assembly seat,” he said.

“What a rape of democracy!”

The aspirant said there was no consensus arrangement among the contenders.

“There was nothing like consensus agreement. No meeting with the governor, nor state party chairman. All we heard was that the winner has emerged,” he added.

Obinna said he would have accepted the outcome if one of the six aspirants who bought forms had emerged through a transparent process.

“My anger is that if the party had chosen one person from among the six of us that purchased forms, but they went as far as selecting a woman who was contesting for federal house of representatives and had failed in the just concluded primary,” he said.

He insisted that he was qualified to represent the constituency and accused the party of denying aspirants a fair contest.

“I’m calling on the party and the governor of Imo state who is the head of the party to do the right thing and provide an opportunity for all the aspirants to test their popularity at the field,” he said.

“Anything short of this is unacceptable by me. I cannot spend over a hundred million naira just to be discarded in this manner because I’m in APC. This is ridiculous. This is unacceptable by me!”(The Cable)