A member of the House of Representatives, Dennis Idahosa, alongside the Youth Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Edo State, Anthony Edun, popularly known as Tony Kabaka have led supporters to protest at the party’s Headquarters in Abuja on Saturday against the primary won by Senator Monday Okpebholo, which they tagged election irregularities.

The protesters could be seen carrying placards with different inscriptions including, ‘Our mandate cannot be stolen or monetised’, ‘Mr President, call APC NWC to order’, ‘NWC, reward loyalty in Edo APC’ and ‘We say No to fictitious results.’

Three of the aspirants were claiming to have won the just concluded primary conducted to produce candidate for the governorship election scheduled for September 21.

Idahosa appealed to President Bola Tinubu to call the National Working Committee (NWC) to order, while threatening to drag the APC to court if justice is not done.

Idahosa said he has submitted a protest letter to the APC Governorship Appeal Committee, adding that he will take his time to go through the process after which he would proceed to court to fight for his right against the party.

His statement reads: “I am not here to make trouble, I am a lawmaker but one thing is that we want is justice. Today, I might be a young man but it might be the children of NWC members tomorrow. We have to do the right thing, if we continue to do what is wrong as a country, we are not going to move forward.

“So I am calling on Mr. President to call the NWC to order. Elections were held on February 17 what they did on 22 was just selection. I challenged one of the LGA returning officers to give me, show me a picture of him in the Local government Headquarters where he said he collated the results and he was just blabbing, there was nothing because I know that they were in the same Hotel in Benin, that’s where they wrote all the results.

“So my fellow party members, I am not here to make trouble, I am only here to seek justice, whatever they have done, if it is not properly managed, I have written yesterday to the appeal panel committee and I know they will do justice, even if whatever they did, I just want to go through the process, having exhausted the party’s resolve mechanism, I will go further, I will seek justice in the court of law and I will not allow this to stand.”

Also speaking, a lawyer and chieftain of the party from Edo State, who accompanied Idahosa alongside other party members, Bernard Ekun, said the party was trying to deliberately avoid APC from providing or getting a candidate for the election.

According to him, when something is inconclusive, it invariably means some places have been identified for primaries to be done in those places, adding that sadly enough, first, nobody came to the field from the other end.

He said, “The Governor who was in charge of the purportedly selection primaries said that it was going to be a fresh election. Between me and you, when you know the issue of INEC, there is supposed to be 21 days notices from INEC for that primary. Nothing of such and we are out of time.

“Are you people saying that the selection process you have done, which you called a fresh election should be acceptable to us? No. Our demands is that the 17 February 17 primaries stands. That is known to Law. What they have done is kangaroo selection.

“What these people have done is that they have sold their responsibility, the excellence in them, they have sold as reasonable men. They have sold it for a Chinese Cuisine, they have sold it for egg fries. But if you want to go to the Bible, they have sold it for a pot of porridge. And it will not stand!

“People were in the hotel sleeping, how will they have been able to get a result? Even INEC did not observe this selection, kangaroo thing they said they were doing. So what you have seen  is that there is no election, we stand on 17th because that is the only one that is duly observe and fallen between the ambit of the law.