Notable chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party in Cross River State, on Tuesday night, shunned the congress that produced Mr. Inok Edim as the chairman of the party in the state.
Stakeholders of the party, including former governors Liyel Imoke and Donald Duke; and eight out of the 11 members representing the state in the National Assembly, among others, boycotted the peaceful but controversial congress.
Edim, who is the incumbent Commissioner for Infrastructure in the state, polled a total of 791 votes out of the 809 votes cast to emerge the winner at the congress, which ended at about 10pm.
It was learnt that the consensus agreement that brought about the emergence of the various candidates were not favourable to the majority of the party’s stakeholders.
However, those who attended the congress, which held at the U.J Esuene Stadium in Calabar, included Governor Ben Ayade, his deputy, Prof. Ivara Esu; Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. John Gaul-Lebo.
Others were the senators representing Cross River-South and Cross River-Central districts, Gershom Bassey and John Owan-Enoh; as well as the member representing Abi-Yakurr federal constituency, Mr. Bassey Ewa, among others.
At the end of the eight-hour exercise, the chairman of the 2016 congress committee for the state, Chief Talib Tebite, declared Edim the winner of the chairmanship election.