A former member of the House of Representatives, Uche Ekwunife, has been disqualified from contesting election into the vacant seat of the Anambra Central Senatorial District under the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
The seat was declared vacant by the Court of Appeal, in December 2015, in a ruling where the Independent National Electoral Commission was ordered to conduct a fresh election within 90 days.
Ekwunife, who had won the Anambra Central Senatorial District seat in the March 2015 senatorial election after contesting under the aegis of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The former lawmaker, after being sacked by the Appeal Court, defected to the APC a few weeks ago, to contest the rerun election as the party’s standard bearer.
However, her defection may have temporarily ended in futility as a five-member screening panel, set up by the party, on Thursday, January 22 overlooked Ewunife to select Sharon Ikeazor, as its candidate in the election.
The committee, chaired by Osita Okechukwu, stated that Ikeazor was chosen to contest election having “fulfilled Section 4 of 2014 Guidelines for the Nomination of Candidates for Public Office and all relevant sections of the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The committee said while Ikeazor was the woman leader, interim national executive committee of the All Progressives Congress and a member of its board of trustees- Ekwunife is a newcomer who is ‘more or less a fair-weather hen’, owing to her history of jumping ship from political parties when things get rough.
“Her trajectory shows loyalty, perseverance and consistency to the emergence of our progressive party. In conclusion, she is qualified and therefore we recommend her for nomination as the candidate of our great party for Anambra State Central Senatorial District.”
“Most importantly, our deep concern is her record which showed that she dumps political parties at will, leaving the parties in its wake factionalized – from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), to Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), back to PDP or vice versa and now to APC.”
“She is more or less a fair-weather hen therefore her antecedent contravenes Section 4(3) of the 2014 Guideline for Nomination of Candidate for Public Office. Caution is valour. The score sheet in respect of the aspirants is also attached herewith for further necessary action. The committee found that Aspirant Senator Uche Lilian Ekwunife, is ineligible to seek the APC nomination for the Senatorial election.”
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