The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogbadibo local government area of Benue State has disowned Daniel Onjeh, the party’s flag bearer in the 2023 senatorial election for Benue South, over his recent petition against the state chairman of the party, Austine Agada.
Onjeh had submitted a formal complaint to the party’s national chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, accusing Agada of engaging in anti-party activities. He alleged that the Benue State APC chairman and his supporters were involved in rigging the 2023 senatorial election in Benue South in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Abba Moro.
Agada has since described the claim as “baseless and unfounded.”
Reacting, however, the party leadership in Ogbadibo has advised Onjeh to stop apportioning blames for his failure at the polls.
A statement by the party’s chairman in the local government, Hon. Andrew Edache, urged Onjeh to embrace peace and adopt better strategies to succeed in future elections.
The statement reads, “Winning an election for any political position depends largely on the seriousness of the candidate. When a candidate works assiduously in collaboration with their political party, electoral victory becomes as achievable as falling from the sky.
“Comrade Daniel Onjeh, the APC Senatorial candidate for the Benue South 2023 general elections, faced defeat in the last polls due to his approach marked by enormous laxity. Perhaps, he believed manna could fall from heaven. To set the record straight.
“Comrade Daniel Onjeh failed to mobilise any party officials or stakeholders to polling units for his election. Instead, he distanced himself from the real people who could have garnered votes for him and ensured his victory at the polls. In other words, Comr. Onjeh did not make provisions for party interface or agent interface, yet he expected to emerge victorious. Onjeh must understand that his failure at the polls was a setback for the APC in Benue State. The party is displeased with entrusting its ticket to a candidate who demonstrated implicit laxity in the politicking process. If Onjeh was a serious candidate in the election, there should have been no need to beg him to interface with his party members, especially polling unit agents and ward collation agents.
“Regrettably, instead of accepting his flaws and working towards righting the wrongs, Comr. Onjeh has decided to play a blame game.
“He submitted a petition against Comrade Austin Agada, the State chairman of APC, Benue State, alleging interference with his campaign and voting process, which, by all intents and purposes, does not hold truth.
“As the party executives in Ogbadibo LGA of Benue State, we dispute Onjeh’s claims. In fact, during the electioneering period, we made several efforts to discuss with him politically, but our efforts were disregarded as he stopped picking our calls. Even returning missed calls on his mobile phone became a problem. How possible is it for such a candidate to win an election of such magnitude?
“We reiterate that Daniel Onjeh lost out in the 2023 election because of his actions and inactions during the election.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Philip Agbese won their elections as APC candidates because they maintained an open system and were in constant communication with relevant stakeholders regarding the mobilisation of supporters and party agents down to their various council wards, which translates to polling units.
“Daniel Onjeh was nowhere to be found; maybe he was just waiting to ride to victory through the influence of other candidates.
“How can you, as a candidate for election, lose your polling unit and council ward in your election and come out shifting blame to someone who conducted monetary transactions of nine million based on his status? It means nine million is more than forty-nine million. We believe if Onjeh had made adequate use of his election funds, this blame game would not have been the order of the day.
“Thus, we, the APC executives in Ogbadibo LGA, wish to categorically state that Daniel Onjeh’s petition against the state chairman of the APC is unfounded and unnecessary. We advise Comr Onjeh to acknowledge his shortcomings and focus on improving his election strategy in the future to avoid losing elections at every given opportunity.”
