2019: Lawani campaign Organization bombs Dan Onjeh for petitioning Steven Lawani, Benue APC leadership

Former Benue state deputy Governor and All Progressive Congress (APC) Benue south senatorial candidate, chief Steven Lawani’s campaign organization has reacted to Dan Onjeh’s petition against it’s principal and the leadership of the party in Benue state.

The campaign organization in a statement by Akor Ikwuoche, Director, Strategic Election Management/Social Media Support Group tagged “RE: OPEN PETITION TO APC NATIONAL CHAIRMAN.

IRREGULARITIES IN APC SENATORIAL PRIMARIES IN BENUE SOUTH: WHY I REJECT THE RESULT.

said “The Lawani Campaign Organization is somewhat compelled to make comments on the poorly crafted piece of write-up which is circulating on the social media with the above caption in which the author took a perfidious journey into making wild allegations on the recently conducted APC primary election in Benue South senatorial district that produced Chief Steve Lawani OFR as the senatorial candidate of APC for the 2019 general election.

“As a responsible campaign organization, we consider it most indecent to respond in public to issues which fall within the borders of our party’s INTERNAL AFFAIRS but since the issues have been put in a petition which status has been declared ‘open’ and made open by the author whose ultimate aim is to ridicule our great party, the All Progressives Congress, and to bring its leadership to public disdain, we decided to make some few commentary on the ill-motivated petition in order to bust the dubious plot of the petitioner and the mischief which he set out to achieve via his petition.

“Accordingly, we wish to put the records straight and state categorically that there is no iota of truth in the entire gamut of that unfortunate petition.
If indeed the petitioner, Comrade Daniel Onjeh, is a true party man who respects the constitution and the leadership of the party, would he have resorted to ‘open petition’ just to disparage the party and its leadership which gave him the first opportunity in his life to work for the government as board chairman, and not have followed the laid down rules for resolving disputes in the party if at all he truly has any?

They went further to stress “THE PHANTOM ISSUES IN HIS PETITION
1. Comrade Onjeh claims that there were cases of impersonation of delegates by strangers during the primary election but he could not re-enforce his claim by, at least, providing the names of those delegates who were impersonated and the names of those strangers who impersonated them. Onjeh did not also tell us who the strangers voted for and who actually brought in the so called strangers. In further mockery of this claim, the petitioner did not tell us how he was able to determine the status of the so called strangers as strangers since we all know that he is not a supernatural being that have the capacity to personally and individually know each and every one of the over 3,000 delegates within the senatorial district.

“One of the big questions arising from this nebulous claim is that, what did he, Comrade Dan Onjeh, do when he noticed the so called strangers voting? Why did he not draw the attention of the electoral officers, the security personnel, his supporters and even the general public within the venue to the alleged unlawful practice for immediate action or protest? We ask this question because we know the Comrade too well for such drastic action whenever his feels something is against his interest. Or is he saying that both the electoral officers, the security Agents and his supporters alike were all complicit in the alleged act of malpractice? Let the public discern.

“2. He also alleged that delegates were harassed, intimidated, blackmailed, induced and physically assaulted on the queues but he yet did not tell us who did all that. He didn’t tell us who among the delegates was blackmailed and what was the element of the blackmail and how he knew that what he described as blackmail was indeed a blackmail.

“One will wonder how all these scenarios which are all violent in nature could play out on an election ground and it was only the petitioner that witnessed it exclusively. What happened to the countless number of security personnel who were massively deployed to that venue to maintain law and order? Could all that violent acts take place in the presence of the security Agents without any reaction from them? What of the media? How come we have not seen any credible media report of such violent incident at the election ground? Resolving these questions shows clearly that the petitioner is out to pull down the party and its leadership in Benue state and perhaps in Nigeria as a whole. We hope our party faithful are taking note of this.

“3. The petitioner further claims that certain delegates which included elected Councilors were disallowed from voting and that if those delegates were allowed to vote their votes would have been to his favour. He said their votes would have been to his favour because those delegates came from a local government area where he got reasonable number of votes during his senatorial contest in 2015 general election. This is another crass postulation which is devoid of any common sense and logic. Though not conceding that some delegates were illegally disqualified from voting, however, even if there were delegates that were disqualified from voting based on their failure to meet the accreditation requirements, how was the petitioner able to discern the minds of the delegates who were to vote in an open secret ballot system that the delegates would have assuredly voted for him? How does the outcome of the 2015 general election become the infallible yardstick to predict the delegates’ election of 2018 after many waters have passed under the bridge? The petitioner is under the illusion that the public does not know how he deserted his supporters after that 2015/2016 elections and how many of his supporters have sworn never to support him again. We therefore advise him to do a self re-assessment rather than embarking on a mission to pull down everybody that is somebody in the party and the party itself just because his ego is not serviced at this time.

“4. He alleged that “delegates’ lists from Okpokwu and Agatu were ignored and substituted with fictitious names to facilitate the casting of fraudulent votes for his opponent”. Well, since the petitioner could not lay any proper foundation for this claim by, at least, stating who was responsible for the alleged crime and he could not also mention any of the fictitious names, it will be totally asinine to waste time on such footless claim. It is trite in law that he who asserts must prove and prove beyond all reasonable doubts in a criminal allegation of this nature, therefore we may not bother ourselves responding to every point of this petition but to merely comment where necessary.

“5. It is part of the claims of the petitioner that his opponent in the primary election, Chief Steven Lawani OFR, did not campaign, that it was only him, Comrade Dan Onjeh that campaigned. This again further exposes the level of falsehood the petitioner is desperately trying to propagate across board. It is a fabulous public knowledge that Chief Steven Lawani OFR, the Ochagwu K’Idoma personally toured the whole nine local government areas of Benue south, campaigning and soliciting for supports of the delegates prior to the primary election; therefore it calls for serious medical concern if anyone could say no such campaign events took place.

“6. The petition further alleged that Senator Akume deployed the entire party machinery at the state, local government and ward level to work against his (petitioner’s) victory. This again is amusing. Even though we are careful not to make any remark that may be seen as if we are holding brief for all the numerous personalities whom the petitioner has accused in his petition, we wish to observe that the above assertion has exposed the petitioner so much that we cannot avoid making some comments on it. Having said that, we wish to tell the petitioner at this juncture that if Senator Akume who is from Benue North East senatorial district can deploy the party machinery in Benue south down to the petitioner’s electoral ward against the petitioner, then that strengthens the fact that the petitioner is not in touch with the party members in his own community which is the reason why he was rejected in all the previous elections including the recently conducted primary.

“7. The petitioner in his characteristic manner, made up others myriads of allegations against several other personalities in his spurious petition among whom were our highly respected party leaders, EXCOs, electoral officers and almost everybody in the party, which we will not like to address here lest we be accused of holding brief for those who did not ask us to defend them, nevertheless, it is clear from the foregoing that the petitioner is out for mischief; he sees nothing good in anyone else except in himself alone; and it is not in doubt that his mission is not to only put our most respected senatorial candidate, Chief Steven Lawani in bad light but to also undermine the All progressives Congress in the forthcoming general election.

“Therefore, we call on the leadership of our party at the state and national level to call the petitioner to order in order to forestall further anti party activities which are obviously imminent from him considering his perfidious antecedents.” They added.