The Electoral Panel that conducted the ward congresses of the Peoples Democratic Party in Cross River State on November 1, has denied allegations by some people that it collected a N500m bribe in order to ensure victory for some delegates.
The exercise took place across the state to produce three delegates in each wards who would determine those who would emerge as PDP candidates in the Governorship and National/States Houses of Assembly election in 2015.
Secretary of the Panel, Senator Emmanuel Anosike, who stated this while addressing journalists in Abuja on Friday, however insisted that the exercise was free and fair to stakeholders because of its transparent nature.
He asked all those who had issues with the result of the ward congresses in the state to take advantage of the PDP Electoral Appeal Panel which had already been constituted, to air their grievances instead of resorting to character assassination.
Anosike said, “If you give me N500m now, I will resign from politics. What am I doing in politics if I am given that kind of money?”
He alleged that the leadership of the party in Cross River State initially attempted to convince the panel to recognise only the contestants who obtained nomination forms from the state chapter of the party and disqualify those who obtained their own from Abuja.
He said, “When they told us this, we said the instruction of our coming to Cross River State was that anybody who bought the nomination form, irrespective of the place you got the form from, whether it was bought in Cross River or you got the form in Abuja, you are entitled to contest.
“The party told us not to entertain any reason whatsoever; that any aspirant should be allowed to contest; that we should collect forms, even at the venue of the congress.”
He explained that the electoral panel had a little caucus meeting with the state executive on arrival at the state where “they told us they have shortlisted some people that would contest and we told them that there’s no shortlisting”
He said the panel insisted that the mandate it got from the national headquarters was that everybody must be allowed to contest and that members maintained that their mandate was to conduct a transparent congress.
He said, “At that juncture, we left to tell the stakeholders that ‘if you bought your form in Abuja, you have the right to contest. If you bought your form in Calabar (Cross River State), you also have the right to contest.
“Immediately they heard that, the environment changed! Everybody was happy. We then asked the party about the arrangement put in place for the election and they replied that they have provided electoral officers for us and we were okay with that.
“We told them that since you are the party here, we will follow you and we followed them, distributed the electoral officers who went to work according to the posting of the state chapter of the party.”
He said trouble started around midnight on Sunday when the results of the Cross River South senatorial district results was announced and discovered that candidates of some interested persons had lost.
Anosike said, “They (Cross River executives), said even though they sent their own people to conduct the elections, they lost! And the person who even brought the result was their returning officer! They now called me and said: ‘Senator, where are you? The result of Cross River South is there.
“We took it and then, the state chairman came back to me and said: ‘please, look, what they had from the field was not the correct thing.’ I then asked him: ‘what do you mean by what you had not being the correct thing? This is the result and we will not tamper with the result.’
“At that juncture, they became jittery that some of their men they sent to the field, maybe, did not play according to instructions. We said okay. Meanwhile, they now arranged for an office, that we should go to that office and that everything that comes, we will work with them.
“I told them pointblank that we are not working with you people. ‘Let your people return the result.’ We were with the executive members of the state chapter of the PDP till 5:00am on Sunday, November 2.
“As at 4:30am, they insisted that they wanted to photocopy the results. We went beyond our duty and agreed. We said ‘okay, go ahead and photocopy the result.’ At that juncture, even the state chairman was jittery with the result because he felt they didn’t do well.
“As at 2:00pm, the National Assembly members, including the Senate Leader and members of the House of Representatives came to meet with us; to register their protests. They told us that they were uncomfortable with what they were hearing that was emanating from the office.
“They claimed that some of the results were being changed and so on. We told them it was not so and that we needed to bring in the chairman to also listen to their complaints.
