A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Ned Nwoko, has vowed to challenge the outcome of the party’s senatorial primary in court, insisting that results and evidence gathered from the wards showed he won the exercise.
Speaking during an interview on Arise News, Nwoko rejected the declaration of former Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as winner of the primary, alleging that the announced figures did not reflect the actual votes cast.
According to the senator, party officials directed midway into the exercise that ward-level results should not be announced immediately but instead forwarded to the party’s national headquarters in Abuja for collation.
“We received instructions on our phones that no results should be announced at the ward level and that they should be collected for announcement later in Abuja,” he said.
Nwoko claimed that only one ward video from Ika North East was circulated publicly and questioned the credibility of the figures attached to it.
“It was just one video showing a small number of people, yet the result declared thousands of votes,” he alleged.
The senator challenged party officials to release evidence and figures from all 98 wards involved in the primary election.
“The video announcing Okowa as winner was from just one ward. They should show us videos and results from the remaining wards,” he stated.
Nwoko maintained that he would reject any outcome upheld by the party leadership if it contradicted what he described as the true mandate of party members.
“I have a mandate from the people. We will head towards litigation,” he said.
Despite threatening legal action, the senator insisted he would remain loyal to the APC and expressed confidence that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would intervene in the dispute.
“I’m not going to work against the party. I believe the President will intervene in this matter,” he added.
Nwoko further disclosed that his camp had submitted ward results and video evidence from all 98 wards, insisting he remained convinced of victory in the contest.
Commenting on internal party politics in Delta State, the senator alleged that long-standing APC members had been sidelined following the defection of former PDP members into the ruling party.
“The President knows there are fundamental problems in Delta and that legacy APC members have been pushed aside by the new PDP bloc,” he claimed.
He also alleged that assurances previously made by former APC National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun regarding restructuring the state party leadership were never fulfilled.
According to him, plans for a power-sharing arrangement and dissolution of the state executive committee were not implemented.
Nwoko insisted he would not concede defeat, maintaining that although he did not expect to win every ward, he secured the majority of votes in the senatorial primary.
