APC Aspirant Rejects Imo Primary Result, Claims ₦100 Million Wasted
Ezechukwu Obinna, an aspirant for the Ahiazu-Mbaise constituency seat in the Imo State House of Assembly, has publicly denounced the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary process, describing it as unfair and financially wasteful.
In a video that circulated widely on Wednesday, Obinna said six aspirants had purchased nomination and expression of interest forms for the seat. Each aspirant reportedly spent more than ₦10 million on processing the forms after the party promised an open primary.
“We were six aspirants who bought forms from Ahiazu-Mbaise, and we each spent over ₦10 million naira. The party gave us hope that there would be an open primary,” he stated.
Obinna claimed that, while the aspirants were preparing for the contest, they learned that another candidate had been selected without any consultation or voting process.
He alleged that the chosen candidate had previously contested and lost a House of Representatives primary.
“While we were preparing ourselves for the exercise, we heard that a woman who failed the House of Representatives primary had been selected as the candidate for the Ahiazu-Mbaise state assembly seat,” he added.
The aspirant denied that any consensus agreement had been reached among the contenders.
“There was nothing like a consensus agreement. No meeting with Governor Hope Uzodimma or the state party chairman. All we heard was that the winner had emerged,” Obinna said.
He noted that he would have accepted the outcome if one of the six aspirants who purchased the forms had won through a transparent process.
“My anger is that if the party had chosen one person from among the six of us who bought forms, but they went as far as selecting a woman who was contesting for the federal House of Representatives and had failed in the just‑concluded primary,” he remarked.
Obinna revealed that his personal campaign and party-related expenses exceeded ₦100 million.
He called on the APC leadership and Governor Uzodimma to rectify the situation by allowing all aspirants to test their popularity in a fair, open primary.
“Anything short of this is unacceptable to me. I cannot spend over a hundred million naira just to be discarded in this manner because I’m in the APC. This is ridiculous. This is unacceptable to me!” he concluded.
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