The choice of former Aviation Minister Stella Oduah to run for a Senate seat in the 2027 general election has caused certain All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) officials to voice their concerns.
The leaders, operating under the banner of Concerned Anambra North Stakeholders (CANS), predicated their concerns on purported certificate anomalies and an alleged N2.5 billion fraud case that was recently resolved at a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court.
Regarding the fraud allegations, the leaders contend that the recent court case, which resulted in Justice Hamza Muazu of the FCT High Court winding up her two companies and forfeiting approximately N2 billion to the Federal Government of Nigeria in a plea bargain arrangement, as well as the purported unresolved inconsistencies in her academic records, raise red flags for APGA to risk giving its platform to her.
Recall that on March 26, in accordance with a plea bargain agreement, Justice Muazu found Oduah’s two businesses, Sobora International Limited and Global Offshore and Marine Limited, guilty after she entered a guilty plea on their behalf. She also issued an order winding them up and ordered that the N780 million recovered during the investigation and the N1.2 billion paid as restitution be forfeited to the federal government.
Additionally, the leaders claimed that the former minister violated Sections 66(1)(i) and 315(5)(a) of the Nigerian Constitution by making “false statements” in documents she gave to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under oath for the general elections in 2015, 2019, and 2023.
Since 2015, they said, Oduah has made conflicting statements regarding her credentials, credentials, and academic records, which she has allegedly neglected to correct.
They petitioned Professor Charles Soludo, the governor of Anambra State, asking him to use his position as the APGA’s national leader to persuade the party’s leadership not to give Oduah the ticket for the Anambra North senatorial district due to purported unanswered concerns regarding her credibility.
In the May 4 petition, which was signed by Sylvester Nnalue and Emmanuel Uduaka, CANS expressed its desire to persuade APGA to avoid making the mistake of giving up its platform to the former minister and to keep her from running in the party’s next Anambra North senatorial district primary election due to the potential harm to the party.
“The discrepancies and outright concealment in the documents and credentials presented by Senator Stella Adaeze Oduah to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under oath in her previous INEC Forms C.F.001/Affidavit in support of personal particulars of persons seeking election to the office/membership of senate for the 2015, 2019, and 2023 general elections,” CANS said in its petition to Soludo.
“Those forms, along with the false information they contain, have already been placed in the public domain and are legally public documents that cannot be withdrawn and will always be used against her.”
“We humbly want Your Excellency to grant Senator Oduah stringent documentation supporting all of her assertions regarding her primary school attendance and certificate.
Contrary to her statements in the aforementioned documents that she submitted to INEC, the police, and the courts, we firmly think that she never took and passed any primary school leaving exams and was never granted a First School Leaving Certificate. Litigation will result from this, and the party will be subject to Section 29(5)(6) of the Electoral Act.
