Chille Igbawua, a member of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, electoral panel and adviser to ADC National Chairman, David Mark, has told aggrieved aspirants, including former minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatu-deen to approach the party’s presidential primary appeal panel.
He reminded the aggrieved politicians that there are internal mechanisms put in place for grievance resolution instead of publicly rejecting the outcome of the primaries.
In an interview on Arise News on Tuesday, he said, “Anybody who is aggrieved by the primary process should go to the appeal and state their reasons. Saying you don’t agree with the process is jumping the gun.”
Amaechi had rejected the results of the presidential primaries, alleging widespread voter disenfranchisement and electoral malpractice.
The former Rivers State governor alleged that about 80 percent of party members across the country were prevented from voting during the exercise.
Also, Hayatu-Deen had announced that he would not attend the party’s presidential election results announcement, citing concerns over alleged widespread irregularities in the exercise.
He said, “The various electoral panels had appeal panels, which are on ground. So, the first appeal would come from screening. If you felt you were screened out unfairly, you will go to an appeal panel, and they will look at your case, and if you were right, you’ll be cleared.
“These are the internal mechanisms that are put in place for grievance resolution. Now, these same panels are on ground for the primaries proper. Anybody who is aggrieved by the primary process, you go to the appeal, state your reasons.
“So, I think it will be jumping the gun to say you do not agree, and then, well, maybe I expect that they will still go to the appeal panel.
“If you think things were not done correctly before the process started, it is known that these are human processes and something is bound to go wrong, and that is why the appeal panels were put in place, and it’s available for everybody.
“We withheld clearance for just two candidates, all of them got cleared by the appeal, and they contested the governorship primaries in their various states.”
