BY NATIONAL PANEL REPORTERS
Senator Julius Ucha and Engineer Elias Mbam.
A governorship aspirant in the just concluded governorship primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ebonyi State, Senator Julius Ucha, has vowed to sue the immediate past Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Engr Elias Mbam for giving him a degrading score in 'his personal organised APC parallel primary' a few days ago.
Ucha described the inclusion of his name and inputting score to him during a parallel primary conducted by the immediate past Chairman, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Engr Elias Mbam as an embarrassment and an effort to tarnish his image.
Recall that Mbam had on Thursday conducted a parallel governorship primary in Ebonyi at his campaign office, Mile 50, along old Abakaliki - Enugu road, where he emerged the winner with 741 votes. He also placed Senator Julius Ucha as the third runner up with four votes.
But aggrieved by the development, Ucha threatened to sue Mbam if he fails to withdraw his name from the purported parallel Primary election.
He disclosed that Mbam never invited or informed him that he was organizing a parallel primary, and couldn’t have scored him in what he knew nothing about.
According to Ucha, “I didn’t know that Chief Engr Mbam was organizing the parallel primary election. He never told me. The last time I came in contact with Engr Mbam was the day we went for screening and exchanged pleasantries. The next day I saw him was yesterday at a peace meeting called by the Commissioner of Police and the Director of SSS. After that meeting, he never told me he was going to organize a parallel primary election.
“So, it was unfortunate that I saw in the social media that he organized a parallel primary election and scored me. I was not in the place he organized the parallel primary election, he didn’t invite me, and he didn’t inform me. So, it came to me as a shocker and when I saw it, I sent him a WhatsApp message and a text message, and expressed my displeasure about the conduct and also asked him to retract it that it was blackmail to my person and that I cannot do such a thing to him.
“But up till now, he has not responded to both the WhatsApp and text messages I sent to his phone. If he has called me or responded to my message, then, I would have said, okay, “since you are sorry about what you have done”, and I wouldn’t have been talking to the press or taking any other step. But he ignored me, which means, he did it deliberately, apparently because, he feels I cannot do anything. That’s is not good, because what he did is that he smeared my image to blackmail me.
“I couldn’t have been at the Pa Ngele Oruta stadium where I participated in a primary election that was held there and left the stadium when I discovered that the process was skewed to fraud, and I complained to INEC; I complained to the committee there, and also complained to the Governor before leaving the stadium. Because immediately after the delegates from Abakaliki LGA voted, the place became rowdy and it was occasioned by some stakeholders of government who started calling all the LGAs and every LGA to surround their box and a stakeholder writing the name of the person they want for them on the ballots and they will be putting it in the ballot box. So, I complained, talked to the press and left.
“It was when I was in primary school that I used to hear that the foremost Zik, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, used to appear in two places at a time, and I don’t even know that I have been promoted to that level by Engr Elias Mbam, believing that I will be at the stadium where I was participating in the primary election and I was also in his place at the same time. I’m not a spirit, I was in one place.
“So, I didn’t participate in the parallel primary election organized by Chief Mbam, he didn’t inform me and I was not aware. I saw it for the first time on social media and I saw it as a calculated attempt to smear my personality and blackmail me. So, I’m not happy about it.
“He is my in-law and I feel that he should have given me that respect by telling me, he was organizing a parallel primary election, let it be that I didn’t go there. But there was no mention of it and when I got to know about it, there was a score, a very derogatory score to my person. Julius Ucha scoring four votes? How I wish they had allowed the one I participated in at the stadium to be free and fair, they would have seen what would have happened.
“I won’t allow anybody to put the goodwill I have enjoyed from Ebonyi people in jeopardy, and that’s what Engr Elias Mbam is trying to do. There is a limit to the patience I can exercise since he is my in-law, but if he doesn’t retract it, I can take legal action against him.” -Master News.
