Stella Oduah Wins Anambra PDP Senatorial Ticket

Nigeria’s former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, reportedly won the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senatorial ticket in Anambra State.

According to the announcement made in Nteje December 7, Oduah polled 259 votes (almost 90%), having prevailed over Margery Okadigbo (8 votes), the incumbent, and wife of former Senate president, Chuba Okadigbo, Premium Times reports.

Sahara Reporters adds that as a result of the primaries, Stella Oduah, an incumbent Senator Andy Uba and Ms. Uche Ekwunife emerged the candidates for Anambra North, Anambra South and Anambra Central senatorial zones respectively. It is provided however with reference to an anonymous source within the party that the PDP officials in Abuja had collected N150 million and “sold” the tickets to the winners.



The source was quoted as saying:
“They sold the tickets to Chief Mrs. Stella Oduah and Andy Uba to sell the tickets to them.”
Moreover, he disclosed that billionaire businessman Arthur Eze paid N150 million on behalf of Ms. Ekwunife.

It would be recalled that Stella Oduah was removed from the office in February over corruption allegations. The minister was accused of buying bulletproof cars worth N255m without listing them in the budget.

Sahara Reporters reveals with reference to its sources that President Goodluck Jonathan, ahead of the PDP primaries, indicated that he wanted Ms. Oduah and Mr. Uba to get senatorial tickets. While First Lady Patience Jonathan coerced the businessman to pay for Ms. Ekwunife, whom he had earlier disparaged as disreputable.

The 3 aspirants of Anambra Central zone confirmed the suspicious character of the event saying that the purported primary did not hold.

One of them said:
“We challenge Uche [Ekwunife] to show on national TV any video evidence of the purported primary, including the delegates, the aspirants who contested with her, the votes scored, and the names of the members of the electoral panel.”

Another aspirant demanded for justice and vowed to take legal action in relation to the process.
“The charade that Mrs. Ekwunife and her dubious collaborators contrived at 4 a.m. amounts to unprecedented impunity. We will definitely go to court to challenge this impunity. If the whole farcical exercise is not cancelled, a group of us will go both to court and to the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to expose the criminal and civil aspects of this 419 scheme by Uche [Ekwunife] and other desperadoes.”