Senatorial election: Accept that you failed, Uduaghan tells APC, DPP, others

Instead of dissipating energy on acrimonious protest, the Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, on Saturday urged members of the opposition All Progressives Congress and the Democratic Peoples Party to accept their defeat in the senatorial bye-election in the state.
The two parties lost woefully the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the recently held Delta Central Senatorial District Bye-Election conducted in the state.
Since their defeat, the aforementioned parties and the All Progressives Grand Alliance flag-bearer, Olorogun Omoru David, have engaged the Independent National Electoral Commission and the winning PDP in war of words, alleging fraud.
But few days after the results were declared, 19 chairmen of registered political parties in the state, including those whose candidates lost the election, hailed the peaceful conduct of the election.
The 19 chairmen, led by the state Chairman of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, Paul Isamade; and flanked by Prince Jude H.E. Eze (KOWA); Ogbueshi Tony Eboka (APGA), who disowned the party’s flag-bearer for anti-party reasons, threatened to suspend the candidate if he protests against the outcome of the election; Chief Nelly Nwaka (Action Alliance) and 15 others, lauded the exemplary conduct of the election as shown to the world by INEC.
The chairmen decried the crisis triggered by the positions of O’tega Emerhor of the APC, who scored 29,075 votes; Ede Definone of the DPP, who got 29,055; and Barrister Andy Osawota of the Labour Party, who scored 1,602, shortly after INEC announced Hon. Emmanuel Aguariavwodo of the People Democratic Party, who polled 263,024, as the winner, calling on all the parties that participated in the exercise to “unconditionally accept the results as announced by INEC”, without heating up the political space.
At the wedding ceremony of the son of Senator Odion Ugbesia of Edo State, held in Warri, Uduaghan said Delta State remains a PDP-controlled state and as such no other political party can secure electoral victory in it.
The governor, flanked by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, and a host of other PDP chieftains, emphasized that the PDP umbrella is large enough for other political parties to key into, adding: “If the election was to be held again, the PDP will record resounding victory even if he does not join the campaign train that saw the senator-elect, Chief Emmanuel Aguariavwado, to victory.”