Edo APC Primary: Okpebholo Only Selected By Ganduje, Others — Afegbua

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kassim Afegbua, has said the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party selected Senator Monday Okpebholo as the party’s Edo governorship candidate.

The former Edo State Commissioner for Information claimed that the governorship primary election that produced Okpebholo never took place

Recall that the APC national leadership had removed Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State as the chairman of the election committee and cancelled the initial primary which produced three different winners.

During the rescheduled primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday, Okpebholo scored 12, 433 votes and was declared as the winner ahead of 11 other aspirants.

In a chat with TheCable on Friday, Afegbua said Okpebholo was handpicked by the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, and other members of the national leadership.

Afegbua, a governorship aspirant, insisted that Okpebholo and his allies were nowhere to be found on the day of the primary election.

He said: “That is how they wanted it and we say good luck to them. The national headquarters of the party should go and deliver the candidate they have ganged up to produce. We will just sit down here and watch.

“Since they say Oshiomhole is their problem, they should leave him out of this and go and deliver the man (Okpebholo) during the election.

“We all knew that there was no primary conducted on Thursday by Okpebholo and others. We never saw the representative of Okpebholo and the others on the field.”

Afegbua, who is a loyalist of Adams Oshiomhole, a former national chairman of the APC, hinted that he may not support Okpebholo in the electioneering campaign.

“I am sure they were working from answer to question. If it is the headquarters that will go and endorse a candidate and will be working towards delivering that candidate, then we wish them good luck,” he said.

“They don’t consider us as anything. To them, we don’t matter. Those who matter are in the headquarters of the party. They should go and deliver the candidate since they know Edo state more than us. We will be here watching.”