APC screens Ebonyi Speaker, Deputy for third term, 22 others

From Uchenna Inya, Abakaliki

The All Progressives Congress (APC) House of Assembly committee has cleared all 24 Ebonyi State House of Assembly aspirants of the party for the party’s tickets for next year’s general election.

The aspirants included the Speaker of the House, Moses Odunwa, and the Deputy Speaker, Chinedu Onah, who are contesting for third terms, respectively.

Chairman of the screening committee, Valentine Akwuba, a lawyer, told journalists in Abakaliki on Sunday after the screening of the aspirants that none of them was disqualified from the party’s primaries.

“The exercise was painstaking; we left no stone unturned. We screened every prospective aspirant: their documented qualifications, their expertise, their membership of the party and every other thing that has to do with the instructions handed to us by the headquarters.

“But we did not disqualify anybody, but we did a thorough job, and we will forward our recommendations and outcome to the party secretariat,” he said.

Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Moses Odunwa, representing Ikwo South State Constituency, who was among those cleared by the screening committee, said every aspirant must stand for the party primaries despite emerging as a consensus candidate of the APC during a consultative stakeholders’ meeting convened by Governor Francis Nwifuru last week.

He described state lawmakers as the closest people to the people because they are always around in the constituencies they represent.

Odunwa assured of more quality representation if elected for a third term.