Onjeh petitions Ganduje, tenders proof of anti-party activities against Benue APC Chairman, Agada

The APC Senatorial Candidate for Benue South in the 2023 General Elections, Com. Daniel Onjeh, has called for the immediate suspension and subsequent investigation of the Chairman of the APC in Benue State, Mr. Austin Agada, over anti-party activities. Onjeh made this call in a 13-page petition date 22nd January, 2024 and titled, “PETITION AGAINST ANTI-PARTY ACTIVITIES BY THE BENUE STATE APC CHAIRMAN AND OTHERS, TARGETED AT MY CANDIDATURE”. The petition was addressed to the APC National Working Committee, through the National Chairman.

In the strong-worded petition which leaked to one of our correspondents and was verified by a reliable source, Com. Onjeh stated that he had written ahead of the 2023 General Elections to alert the National Chairman of the APC about the shoddy handling of the party’s polling unit agents for the 2023 Presidential/National Assembly Elections in Benue South by the Benue State APC Chairman, and how it constituted an imminent threat to his senatorial ambition, but his complaint was ignored by the national leadership of the party.

Onjeh further alleged that the Benue State APC Chairman and his acolytes rigged the 2023 senatorial election in Benue South in favour of the candidate of the PDP and current Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Patrick Abba Moro. According to Onjeh, it explains why despite winning three out of the four House of Reps seats in Benue South during the last general elections, the APC still lost both the senatorial and the presidential elections to the opposition. “If you care to research the history of elections in Nigeria, you will discover that it has never happened in any other election aside the 2023 General Elections in Benue South, where a particular party won three out of four House of Reps seat in a senatorial district; and yet lost the senate,” stated Onjeh.

The former Chairman of the Projects Development Institute (PRODA), Enugu, Governing Board also alleged that Mr. Agada, who took to national television to disparage some Idoma elders and elites for advocating equity during nominations for ministerial appointments, accusing them of anti-party activities, was actually the “Chief Priest” and “Lead Culprit” of anti-party in the Benue State APC.

Among Mr. Agada’s anti-party activities, Onjeh mentioned sourcing funds from APC stalwarts at the state and national levels under the guise of party funding, only to fund opposition parties and opposition candidates; holding series of meetings with APC structures and stakeholders across the nine local governments of Benue South prior to the 2023 General Elections, and directing them to work for Sen. Moro of the PDP; and deliberately and maliciously withholding election-day logistics in order to frustrate the efforts of genuine party agents.

Onjeh further accused Mr. Agada of funding a member of the opposition Labour Party (LP) from his Ogbadibo Local Government, by name Hon. Joseph Ojobo, with the sum of Five Million Naira, to vie for the LP senatorial ticket in order to have multiple candidates in the general elections and split his usual block votes from the local government, a ploy intended to favour Sen. Moro of the PDP who hails from Okpokwu Local Government.

Mr. Agada’s last transgression, according to Com. Onjeh, was withholding party agents’ tags in areas where he could not tamper with the agent’s list, in order to prevent them from participating and upholding the interests of the APC in the election; particularly in his local government, Ogbadibo.

Attaching the alleged receipts of financial transactions, Com. Onjeh said he stumbled across incontrovertible evidence that Mr. Agada made copious cash contributions to the campaign of Sen. Moro through a proxy, Helen Etu.

“On the 5th of December, 2022, at 9:19am, in the heat of electioneering campaign for the 2023 polls, Mr. Agada transferred the sum of Five Million Naira (N5,000,000.00) only to a third party, one Helen Etu, and via an SMS, instructed her to transfer the same to Sen. Moro’s Fidelity Bank Account with account details; 5010191996. The lady transferred the aforementioned amount to the senator’s bank account immediately she received the instruction from Mr. Agada. Proof of this transaction is presented in Exhibit A, attached to this petition.

“Furthermore, on 8th December, 2022, at 3:48pm, Mr. Agada transferred another sum of Four Million Naira (N4,000,000.00) only to the same Helen Etu; and via SMS, directed her to transfer the same to Sen. Moro’s GTB Account with account details; 0027873390. Proof of this transaction is displayed as Exhibit B, attached to this petition,” stated Onjeh.

Also attached to Onjeh’s petition was the certified bank statement of Helen Etu from Zenith Bank PLC for the period of the aforementioned transactions, showing the cash credits to her account from Mr. Agada to the tune of Nine Million Naira only, as well as her debits to the same tune, to the respective bank accounts of Sen. Moro.

Onjeh stated that it was easy for Mr. Agada and his cohorts to perpetrate the electoral fraud against him during the last general elections because they used compromised agents in Benue South, adding that it was the reason the APC equally lost the presidential election in the senatorial district.

“In my honest opinion, the success of election-day activity relies heavily on the party agents, especially in the rural areas where a lot of the electorate are illiterate and cannot readily identify relevant words and symbols on the ballot papers, hence they rely a lot on the party agents to guide them in casting their votes appropriately for the candidates of their choice. Therefore, the party’s agents can easily frustrate any candidate at the polls, if they wished to,” stated Onjeh.

Com. Onjeh stated that he was initially assured by the Organizing Secretary of the APC in Benue State, Hon. James Ornguga, that the party had directed at a national retreat that the senatorial candidates should produce the party’s agents for the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections, which informed his payment of the sum of Seven Hundred Thousand Naira (N700,000.00) to Hon. Ornguga’s account on 5th January, 2023, as payment for registering all the party’s agents for the February 25th, 2023 polls in Benue South.

“In the firm belief that I was going to have my agents at the Polling Units, I proceeded to draft my volunteers, and deployed enormous resources to organize them. Even though it was relatively easier and cheaper for me to bring my volunteers on board, because I had already trained most of them during the 2015 general elections, it still involved huge logistics for me to mobilize and re-orientate them for the 2023 General Elections,” noted Onjeh.

He however stated that Hon. Ornguga called on the eve of the election to inform him that his agents’ list did not sail through, as the final agent’s list submitted was that compiled by Mr. Agada, and in Onjeh’s opinion, Mr. Agada’s co-conspirators.

“Usually, when I am contesting in an election, I would set up an efficient election situation room, from where I receive regular updates on goings-on at each polling unit. But during the last general election, the State Party Chairman and his cohorts successfully cut me off completely from the scheme of events, such that aside from my polling unit, I had absolutely no idea of what was going on in any other polling unit in Benue South,” stated Onjeh.

The former President of Nigeria’s apex student body, NANS, also alleged that some staff of the Makurdi Office of INEC colluded with Sen. Moro to deny his legal team access to sensitive electoral materials for the timely prosecution of his petition at the Tribunal, in spite of a subsisting court order to that effect.

“That convinced me beyond doubt that some INEC staff at Makurdi were working in cahoots with Sen. Moro. We resorted to writing a protest letter to the National Chairman of INEC, before he apparently compelled the Commission’s Makurdi office to grant us access to the ballot papers, albeit belated,” stated Onjeh.

Onjeh alleged that despite the antics of Mr. Agada and his co-conspirators to defeat him at the polls, their efforts proved abortive as the Benue South electorate voted overwhelmingly for him; however, his votes along with those of the Labour Party senatorial candidate were swapped in their respective strongholds in favour of Sen. Moro, with the connivance of APC agents engaged by Mr. Agada.

“…what we finally discovered from the Certified True Copies of the ballot papers that we received from the Commission was that while they tried to maintain the total BVAS accreditation for each polling unit, to avoid creating the impression of over-voting, they actually swapped my votes for most of the polling units that I won, in favour of my opponent in the PDP, Sen. Moro. They equally swapped the votes of the Labour Party Senatorial Candidate, Hon. Joseph Ojobo, in favour of Sen. Moro, in most of the polling units where the Labour Party candidate was having the upper hand.

“…request the Certified True Copies of the ballot papers used for the last senatorial election in Benue South, and count the actual votes yourselves. The trend of vote swapping against me will clearly reveal that I defeated Sen. Moro in that election with over 50 thousand votes,” stated Onjeh.

Com. Onjeh added that after the election results were announced, he placed a call to the APC State Chairman, Mr. Agada, and pleaded with him to furnish him with the list of party agents used for the election, so he could reach out to them and file his petition at the Tribunal, but Mr. Agada bluntly declined his request.

Onjeh alleged that the current Deputy Governor of Benue State, Dr. Sam Ode, previously confided in him that in the build-up to the 2023 General Elections, Mr. Agada visited him at house in Utako, and pleaded on his knees that they should work together to deliver Sen. Moro at the polls.

“Dr. Ode said he was shocked to his marrows at Agada’s rather strange proposal, as he found it difficult to believe that a party’s State Chairman could conspire to trade off his party’s senatorial candidate to the opposition. I am a man of honour, and I strongly believe that Dr. Ode is equally a man of honour; therefore if called upon, he cannot deny my claim,” stated Onjeh.

Onjeh further alleged that he won the 2019 senatorial primary of the APC in Benue South, but the then party Chairman, Com. Abba Yaro, acting in connivance with others, denied him the victory.

“The then party Chairman, Com. Abba Yaro, in an act of repentance, once made a public confession that I won that primary election with over two hundred and fifty votes (250), but he and other stakeholders of the party conspired to upturn my votes in favour of my opponent, Yet, I imbibed the spirit of sportsmanship and worked for the party in the 2019 General Elections. It is on record that I went round Benue South with the said opponent to campaign for him and other party candidates during that election. Unfortunately, Chief Lawani lost to Sen. Moro of the PDP at the polls. But regardless of the frustrations I have faced in the APC, I have never left to another party,” stated Onjeh.

He therefore opined that it was very unfair and disheartening for him to be denied the golden opportunity of fulfilling his age-long ambition of clinching the Benue South senatorial seat on platform of the APC, after he has toiled very hard to build the party in Benue South, adding that he was a foundation member of the APC, and had been a member of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) before its merger with other legacy parties in 2014 to form the APC.

Copied in the petition was President Bola Tinubu; the Governor of Benue State, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sen. Dr. George Akume; the Chairman of INEC and Mr. Austin Agada.

The APC chieftain stated that it became imperative for him to write the petition in order to sanitize the party in Benue South and to serve as a deterrent to the APC State Chairman and his cohorts, as well as all others who may contemplate perpetrating anti-party activities in the future. He further stated that he sought to consolidate the party’s grip on power in Benue State, as well as to end all the crises rocking the Benue State chapter of the party, noting that all the crises in the party in the state were traceable to the anti-party activities of the leadership.

“Finally, I seek to encourage all APC members in Benue State to repose new confidence in the leadership of the party,” stated Com. Onjeh.