By Praise Necherem

A group of party faithful in the All Progressives Con­gress (APC) in Anambra State, yesterday, raised alarm over alleged bribery scandal trailing the primary election of the party slated for August 5.

The group, led by Chief Wal­ter Okoli, alleged that a cer­tain aspirant on the platform of the party and his group were in a desperate move to bribe the hierarchy of the par­ty with a view to skewing the primary in their favour.

In a statement made avail­able to newsmen in Awka, the state capital, Okoli, who vowed to expose the charac­ters behind the move, called for the quick intervention of the National Executive Coun­cil of the party.

He however dismissed claims in some national dai­lies that the party had elim­inated some aspirants in the race.

His words, “They have planned to compromise and bribe anybody for selfish in­terests. Our forum finds this disgusting, fraudulent and against every good thing APC stands for and we are poised to expose every single de­tail of this plot as well as the characters involved like given and taken of the gratification.

“The party members are also being mobilized to resist any attempt to fortify the del­egate’s list to create undue advantage to any aspirant.

“It is also being heavily ru­moured that the same desper­ate aspirant is attempting to compromise the chairman of the Anambra state elector­al committee, Chief Dr. Jim Nwobodo, a former Governor of Old Anambra state, a for­mer minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a dis­tinguished senator in Abuja which we find difficult to be­lieve.

“We do not believe that the revered Chief Nwobodo will allow such a thing to happen as everybody in the South East holds him in high esteem we equally believe that his name is being dropped by the desperadoes.

“We in the APC stakehold­ers forum, advice all aspirants to go to the party delegates to canvass for votes and sup­port, instead of going through the back door, seeking evil and dangerous short cuts to the party ticket”.

“We promise them embar­rassment and shame if they continue with this nefarious activity” the group said.

When contacted on the telephone, however, the state Publicity Secretary of APC, Mr Okelo Madukaife, said re­acting to such rumour is un­necessary as he is unaware of the person behind the allega­tion.

“We don’t know the person who is making this allegation; so there is no need for our re­action. We would not want to give such characters rele­vance.” he said.