By Felix Ekwu
Thirty-four Ad hoc delegates voted Sunday in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, primary for the Ethiope East Constituency seat in the Delta State House of Assembly for 2023 general elections.
State Commissioner for Economic Planning, Mr Barry Gbe, led a 3-man team from the state PDP to conduct the primary which went on peaceful and smoothly at the council secretariat of Ethiope East.
The peaceful atmosphere that pervaded the Ethiope East Local Government secretariat on Sunday was in sharp contrast to the tense and chaotic situation that characterised the conduct of the primary at the same venue four years ago.
At 8:45am, Mr Gbe and his team were already concluding arrangements to kick start the House of Assembly primary involving eight of the aspirants.
Just when accreditation of thirty-three Ad hoc delegates from the eleven wards, one national delegate and one physically challenge to make it a total of thirty-five was ongoing, one of the House of Assembly aspirants, Hon Abel Okuse approached the primary panel to announce his withdrawal from the contest.
Also, some of the aspirants protested that a particular female delegate from ward two who was used to replace the initial delegate that died days before the primary should be excluded from participating in the exercise.
They argued that the process that led to the replacement of the deceased delegate was not through another congress of the party.
Mr Gbe had to clear with the PDP hierarchy, and the argument of the protesting aspirants was upheld.
After accreditation and other necessary formalities were done, voting by the thirty-four delegates commenced and within forty-five minutes it was through.
Thereafter, the ballot papers were sorted out under the watchful eyes of the aspirants’ agents and counted openly before the delegates.
In the end, immediate past Delta State Commissioner for Urban Renewal, Olorogun Arthur Akpowowo emerged the winner with 15 votes.
He defeated his two close challengers, Chief Faith Majemite, who scored 10 votes and Hon Augustine Ogedegbe, who polled 9 votes, to clinch the party’s ticket for the 2023 general elections.
The other four aspirants had no vote.
Olorogun Akpowowo, who described his victory as hard-earned returned all the glory to God and expressed immense gratitude to the delegates for finding him worthy to be the party’s flagbearer in the 2023 general elections.
He noted that the existing unity of the party in the area will eventually snowball into a victory that the PDP last won in the local government area in 2011.
The PDP primary for Ethiope East Constituency was under the watchful eyes of representatives of the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, headed by the Electoral Officer, EO, for Ethiope East, Mr Magbegor Ovimu.
There was a heavy presence of security personnel to forestall any eventuality.
