The leadership of the Abia chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has explained why it dropped Hon. Okey Igwe, the running mate to the late Prof. Uche Ikonne.
The Publicity Secretary and Vice Chairman Abia North, Hon. Amah Abraham, said Igwe was dropped because he has dual citizenship.
During a telephone interview with The Nation, Amah said PDP took the decision to avoid going into the March 11 contest without any governorship candidate.
He said: “Our former guber candidate is deceased and as a result of that, a section of the Electoral Act was activated. That section of the Electoral Act which was activated requires a primary to be conducted and in conducting fresh primaries means that a new candidate must emerge from the party and that was exactly what has happened.
“A new candidate has emerged and one of the legal privileges of a candidate who emerged as a flagbearer of the party either as a governor or a President is the first privilege that accrues to the person is the right to nominate his or her running mate.
“Nobody or institution compels you to adopt somebody. Of course, a candidate can choose his running mate by consulting with the party, but it is the candidate that will eventually determine his or her running mate.
“So, when Prof. Ikonne died, the joint ticket with his deputy or running mate died as well. Whoever that was his running mate ceases to exist as a running mate because nobody elected the running mate in any party primary. The person who was elected was Prof. Ikonne and that is the person who is vested with the powers to nominate.
“If he who was nominated had died, the nominator would have been empowered to re-nominate another person. That is what happened.
“The truth is that he is a very qualified person. The truth is that we feel so bad that he is no longer the deputy governorship candidate of the party. But you see, his private interest as an individual cannot override the interest of the party.
“One of the reasons the new governorship candidate didn’t consider him (Okey Igwe) is also based on legal issues and one of those legal issues is that as of the time that he (Okey Igwe) was already a running mate, a matter came up in a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where a candidate was challenged that in a Federal High Court that he is not eligible on the grounds that he has dual citizenship and the Federal High Court ruled in the matter that anybody who has pledged allegiance to a foreign country cannot be qualified to stand for public office in Nigeria. That person was disqualified.
“Now, the person took the matter to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the Federal High Court and the matter is before the Supreme Court.
“He is a dual citizen; he has served in the American Military and the rest of the things that were part of the plus which he had as a person and if for any reason those things which were part of his plus have now developed legal challenges, then we cannot because of his individual interest take a risk that will make our party go into an election without a candidate.
“As a party, we felt that it was not necessary to start talking about the challenges that made the party to drop him but we are now addressing this issue because of the position that he (Okey Igwe) is taking now and that is why it has become important that we explain to the public reasons for our actions.”
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