Governor Umahi Attacks Princess Agom-Eze Over Senatorial Ticket

By Charles Igbo

Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. Dave Umahi, has descended on Princess Ann Agom-Eze.

Umahi and Agom-Eze are engaged in a fierce battle over the rightful candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, for the Ebonyi South Senatorial District in 2023.

The Senatorial Primary was held while Governor Umahi was a Presidential aspirant. That Primary was won by the Governor’s younger brother, Austin Umahi after the other aspirants were, allegedly, asked to “cooperate.”

But it turned out he was a stand-in for the Governor who staged a come-back for the ticket after he lost out at the Presidential Primary.

The junior Umahi withdrew from the Senatorial race, and the State Chapter of the Party conducted a second Primary expectedly won by the Governor. But it is an election that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from the onset, declared illegal. The Commission said it stood by the first Primary.

Trouble started when INEC skipped Governor Umahi’s name from the list of Senatorial candidates it published. To compel INEC to publish his name, Umahi went to the Federal High Court Abakiliki. Agom-Eze, a participant in the first Primary recognised by INEC decided to join in the suit.

A few days ago, the Presiding Judge, the Honourable Justice Riman, gave a judgement that both Umahi and his brother stood disqualified. In Governor Umahi’s case, the Judge said that by virtue of Section 115 of the new Electoral Act, Umahi, having participated in the Presidential Primary, stands disqualified and risks a two year jail term for participating in two different Primaries same year, same General elections.

In disqualifying his younger brother, the Judge said he had earlier withdrawn from the race. He, therefore, gave the ticket to Agom-Eze.

But another twist came up.

A letter signed by Agom-Eze to the National Chairman of the APC, where she announced her voluntary withdrawal from the Senatorial race emerged.

The opinion in the Umahi camp is that she, too, stands disqualified since, like Umahi jnr.,  she withdrew from the race.

But Agom-Eze is holding tenaciously to the ticket, and   the case is on appeal.

However, Governor Umahi is not relenting. He calls Agom-Eze’s claim to the ticket fraudulent. He is confident the ticket will finally be his, Section 115 of the Electoral Act or not.

In a Press release signed by his Special Adviser Media and Publicity, Chooks Oko, Umahi takes an umbrage on Agom-Eze, and explains why her claim is fraudulent. A date for a new Primary is set for July 31, 2022. Governor Umahi is participating, and says he is sure of picking the ticket.

Following, the full text of the statement titled:

Mrs Ann Agom Eze is at it again

“The attention of Ebonyi State Governor has once again been drawn to the bizarre antics of Mrs Ann Agom Eze in her quest to keep deceiving the public and gain unmerited sympathy in a bogus attempt to fly the APC flag as the candidate for Ebonyi South Senatorial zone.

“While the society was still grappling with her perjury tantrums to a revered court of law, she is again employing primitive tactics and resorting to crude self help in a bid to clinch a mandate she has no claim to, anyhow.

“In a most provocative and highly contemptuous letter addressed to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court Abuja, Mrs Agom Eze went hallucinating about an imaginary court procedure and how it will end raising disparaging insinuations against the Governor in the process.

“The Governor would have ignored the letter and its puerile contents but for the fact that silence is thought to mean consent in our society.

“The general public is enjoined to disregard these deliberate concoctions and misleading rants from a woman who had sought to represent a people, got rejected, but is now bent on showing them the rough edges they would have gotten from her.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Governor Umahi is ready for the Ebonyi South Senatorial APC rerun elections set for Sunday, 31st July, 2022 where he hopes to receive the nod of his party to stand in the 2023 elections as their candidate in that Senatorial zone.

“The general public, and the judiciary in particular, are enjoined to disregard and totally ignore the veiled blackmail and an attempt to be a senatorial candidate by hook or crook instead of through known standards.”