Paul Osuyi, Asaba
A leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State, Hyacinth Enuha on Wednesday said the chances of the party winning elective positions in the state has been boosted by the defection of the immediate past governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan into the party.
Enuha told our correspondent that Uduaghan is an asset with the capacity to dictate the pendulum in next year’s election, having empowered so many people during his eight-year tenure as governor.
He said: “By the time you do two terms that is eight years, do you know the number of people you would have empowered? Do you know the number of people who will benefit from the number of people you have blessed?
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“They will keep blessing others with that multiplier effect. So it is a very big advantage. Why do you think they are jumping up for Akpabio to come into APC? Because he has been a governor for two terms. Do you know what he has done there?”
Enuha reiterated his appeal to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the APC to approve direct primaries to produce candidates for all elective positions in next year’s election, insisting that the process will deepen democracy.
He said state governors on the party’s platform are resisting direct primaries to protect their selfish interests, maintaining that it was only through direct primaries that popular candidates can emerge to fly the party’s flag.
“I am appealing to the party NEC to approve direct primaries for all positions. I know that there are these governors who are resisting for their own self interest because they want to control delegates if we continue with indirect primaries.
“A situation where you gather a bunch of delegates, lock them up in a hotel, feed them and give them drink for days, and on the day of the convention, you pack them into a bus like prisoners, pay them handsomely and shepherd them to vote your choice is not good for democracy.
“And this has been going on since 1999, and now Tinubu and Oshiomhole have seen the light and want to entrench internal democracy, and the only way to do it is to adopt direct primaries where everybody would participate.
“The advantage of direct primaries is that people do not depend on the executives for who to vote for. The executive is a cesspool of corruption. People want to be in the executive to manipulate delegates’ list and corruptly enrich themselves.
“But the good news is after direct primaries, nobody will be aggrieved, and therefore everybody will come together as one unit to prosecute the general election. But in the delegates’ primary cheating is part of it which usually lead to people leaving the party,” he opined.