ABAKALIKI – Chief Ben Nwobashi has emerged as Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ebonyi State.
Nwobashi scored 547 votes to defeat Mr Patrick Mgbebu, who scored 101 votes.
The results were announced by Mrs Adeola Ndu, Chairman, National Congress Committee for the state in Abakaliki on Friday.
According to her, Mr Eze Nwachukwu was returned unopposed as the state Deputy Chairman while Mr Victor Nnali scored 475 votes to beat the immediate past Interim Secretary, Mr Chaka Nweze, who had 313 votes.
Ndu said winners could not emerge for Organising Secretary and State Assistant Woman Leader elections.
“We painstakingly discharged our duties as directed by the national headquarters of the party despite some challenges.
“We will submit the list to the national headquarters that would decide when the vacant positions will be filled and modalities to adopt”, she said.
The chairman advised aggrieved members to seek redress through due processes saying that the committee did its work without bias.
“The committee is not aware of factions that provided parallel lists of state executive to the press, as we conducted our affairs with the guidelines of the party.
“The delays recorded in announcing the results from the ward to the state congresses were regrettable as the announcements could not have been done without adequate security and logistics”, she said.
Ndu said the party would overcome the present challenges and ensure unity among members to achieve set goals.
Mr Gabriel Madukwe, a member of the committee, debunked insinuations that the committee’s Secretary, Mr Sunny Onyukwu, was victimised for being an ally of the party’s National Leader, Dr Ogbonnia Onu.
“The committee does not have any problem with Onyukwu as his recent absence from our proceedings was due to personal reasons’’, he said.
Onyukwu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on telephone that his absence was due to personal reasons, stressing that he was still the secretary of the committee. (NAN)