Awka – The Valentine Ozigbo Campaign Organisation, over the weekend, assured the people of Anambra State that the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate in the November 6 election, Mr Valentine Ozigbo, is still in the governorship race.
Ozigbo name was not shortlisted in the INEC list of contestants for the Anambra Governorship election released last week.
The space for the PDP candidate and the running mate, was conspicuously vacant, a development orchestrated by a court order.
A statement to the press, signed by Aziza Uko, the Media Adviser of the Valentine Ozigbo Campaign Organisation, noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) reliance on a court order in not publishing the name of the PDP candidate, Mr Valentine Ozigbo, was “a matter of procedure and temporary”.
However, Uko said the PDP had mobilised men and resources to ensure the said order is vacated to enable INEC to update its records with the name of Mr Valentine Ozigbo as the gubernatorial candidate for Anambra State as has been forwarded to the national electoral body by the PDP.
“It is on record that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had the most credible party primary ahead of the November 6 Anambra State governorship election,” the statement read.
“Most of the aspirants, present at the primary venue on June 26, 2021, spontaneously congratulated Ozigbo once he was declared the winner and went on to formally publish their congratulations to him as the elected candidate of the party.
“The development, in which aspirants congratulate the elected candidate, is novel in Anambra party politics, attesting to the acceptability of the candidacy of Valentine Ozigbo and the transparency of the process from which he emerged.
“We acknowledge that Mr Ozigbo is still reaching out in dialogue to few aspirants who feel aggrieved and at the end of the process, the PDP will emerge as one family under one big umbrella that accommodates everyone.
“We confirm that the PDP has forwarded only the name of Mr Valentine Ozigbo as its candidate for the 2021 Governorship Election to INEC. We also confirm that he had submitted his credentials to INEC and that all the procedural necessities that should follow before INEC’s publication of the list of candidates had been completed,” Aziza disclosed.
According to Uko, Mr Ozigbo appreciates the interests of his teeming supporters and the entire Anambra electorate as a whole, over the current situation and calls on them to keep faith with the process as all is under control.
She also assured that the issues will be resolved in no time and open the space for a one-of-a-kind campaign on issues that were top on the minds of Anambra people, with regards to their yearnings for transformational leadership that will usher in a new era of peace and progress to the State.
