Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, a former special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on prosecution, has claimed that the ruling party in Cross River State, the All Progressives Congress, APC, is beyond salvation.
He also said that the party had fully abandoned the founding fathers' values.
Obono-Obla, who was defeated in the APC senatorial primary in Cross River Central yesterday, claimed in a public statement that the powers that be were at a crossroads about what to do with him and had invented crude and inferior tactics to oust him.
The Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Eteng Williams, won the APC primary contest for the Cross River Central Senatorial ticket for next year's general election, polling 152 votes.
Akin Rickets, the former chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, came in second with 109 votes, followed by Obono Obla with 19 votes and Mary Ekpere with 35 votes.
"The APC has fully abandoned its founding founders' philosophy." Let us wait and see how the anointed aspirants will carry the party forward in Cross River State. "As it stands now, the party is irreparably splintered," he stated.
According to reports, a doctored delegate list was used to favor the "anointed aspirant."
"Every politically savvy person knew that a particular aspirant was the darling of the powers that be," Obono-Obla remarked. The use of one candidate's name as the favorite weeks before the election amounts to intimidation.
"Before you can aspire to be a candidate, the potentate ensures that you must have his endorsement." Those who did not have the support of the potentate faced a slew of challenges. From the beginning, I was a target.
