By: Felix Ikpotor
Governorship candidate of the Accord Party, AP, in Rivers State, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, has said that he substituted one Mr. Nelson Amieye as flag bearer of the party, and not Sir Precious Baridoo, who had taken him to court to be nominated for same position.
Lulu-Briggs gave the clarification on Thursday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital following the suit before which is before a Federal High Court, Port Harcourt.
Mr. Baridoo in the suit is contending that he and not Briggs be declared the gubernatorial candidate of the party for the 2019 Rivers governorship eelction.
But, Lulu-Briggs in a statement by Mr. Sotonye Ijuye-Dagogo, Director of Communications, Dumo Media Campaign Organisation, said that Baridoo never bought expression of interest and nomination forms for the Rivers governorship election under AP.
The statement reads in part, “The claims that Baridoo duly resigned his position as Accord Party Chairman to contest the October 4 governorship primaries of the party is patently and administratively false.
“On-going investigation suggests that Baridoo concocted his emergence as Rivers AP governorship candidate on October 4, 2018, even when he proceeded to contest and emerged Chairman, Rivers State Inter Party Advisory Council, IPAC, on November, 2018, a position he holds till date.
“We are in possession of the letter by the Rivers Accord Party dated December 3, 2018 by David Sunday as Secretary, in which Baridoo was congratulated for emerging the Chairman of IPAC, a position he can only contest as state chairman of a political party.”
The Kalabari-born governorship candidate while noting that Baridoo did not exhaust the internal mechanism as provided by the Constitution of the party for conflict resolution before running to court, added that he (Briggs) was duly nominated to the National Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, which has him as AP gubernatorial candidate.
Port Harcourt Spectator recalls that Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs was a guber aspirant under the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, before defecting to Accord Party after he lost out in the indirect primaries conducted by the Ojukaye Flag-Amachree led faction of the party.
