It was a festival of politics in Ebonyi State, southeast Nigeria, Saturday as the two major political parties in the state, ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and rival, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, held their respective state congresses.
In electing the leadership of their various parties at the state level, both political parties adopted an open secret voting system.
The Abakaliki township stadium, the venue for the APC congress, saw a large number of party faithful gathered for the exercise.
Despite the early arrival of electoral materials and delegates, voting didn’t start until about 3 pm, ending four hours later.
This is as the former State Commissioner for Internal Security and Border Peace, Stanley Okoro- Emegha, emerged as the substantive state Chairman of the party, after polling 118 votes out of the 141 votes cast to defeat his only opponent.
Still basking on the successful conduct of its Ward and Local Government Congress recently, members and stakeholders of the PDP were at the popular people’s club Abakaliki to replicate the same success at the state level.
In a matter of few hours, the exercise ended conclusively with Tochukwu Okorie, a former PDP House of Representatives aspirant, declared winner of the chairmanship position.
The Senator Ben-Collins Ndu-led electoral panel, while announcing the result of the Congress, said Tochukwu Okorie garnered 1, 240 votes to defeat his opponent Silas Onu, who scored 260 votes.