•Ugwuanyi wants own council chairmen
•APC depletes Anambra PDP
By Chuks Ehirim
Assistant Editor, North
Some prominent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members in Anambra have defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and implosion seems imminent in the Enugu PDP, a state it has cornered up since its formation in 1998.
Sources confided in TheNiche that there are at least five PDP camps in Enugu State, each scheming to take control of the party at its congresses scheduled for March 2016.
Chime’s loyalists
There is also the desire of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to control council administration by hand picking the next set of chairmen and councilors instead of allowing them to emerge through election.
A source disclosed that Ugwuanyi, who is setting machinery in motion for his second term bid in 2019, does not trust all the 19 council chairmen who, along with councilors, were installed by former Governor Sulivan Chime, who left office on May 29.
Ugwuanyi is said to be planning to install caretaker committee chairmen who will serve for between three and six months, within which he would consolidate his hold on power before allowing elected leadership in the third tier of government.
He has just appeased lawmakers with the gifts of Prado jeeps, instead of the higher brand of jeeps they demanded, which would have cost the treasury over N10 billion.
He does not want to toy with council helmsmen.
Factions
The PDP factions are controlled by former Governor Jim Nwobodo; former Senate President, Ken Nnamani; former Secretary to the State Government and former governorship aspirant, Ifeoma Nwobodo; Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu; and Senator Gilbert Nnaji.
Each camp is fielding aspirants to various offices in the PDP State Executive Committee (SEC) to be elected at the next congress.
Nwobodo’s faction has picked former Lands Commissioner, Okechukwu Ogbodo, as state party chairman while the Nnamani camp has former Nkanu West Council Chairman, Jerry Ene, as its candidate.
Ifeoma’s group has many personalities for the post, among them former Enugu East Council Chairman, Cornelius Nnaji; Nkanu East Council Chairman, Sam Iyiogwe; and Enugu North Council Chairman, Emeka Ede.
Candidates from the Nnaji camp include state PDP Secretary, Steve Oruruo; former Enugu East PDP Chairman, Ifeanyi Nnaji; and current Chairman, Freedom Nnamani.
Ekweremadu, the only political heavyweight from outside Enugu East (where the state party chairmanship is zoned) has as its pointman, Frank Anioma, former personal assistant to former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani
Other interests
Outside these camps, there are aspirants to the PDP chairmanship not backed by moneybags.
One of them is Enugu East PDP Youth Leader, Tony Nwachukwu, who has written to major stakeholders notifying them of his interest in the post and is now in a subtle media campaign.
He said he intends to evolve socio-political conditions conducive for party unity as well as equitable distribution of opportunities for every member, bearing in mind the principle of collective interest.
He wants the rotation of political offices among wards, council, federal and state constituencies, and senatorial districts based on merit “as would reflect the mind and direction of state leaders and the generality of stakeholders and members.”
Nwoye leads Anambra PDP members to APC
Efforts to rejuvenate the PDP in Anambra have received a setback with the defection of a major bloc to the APC.
Members of the faction, led by 2013 PDP governorship candidate, Tony Nwoye, went to the APC national secretariat in Abuja, where they were received by the party’s National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, and others in the National Executive Council (NEC).
Nwoye disclosed that their defection is endorsed by former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, and other Anambra PDP leaders.
“We are leaving the PDP on principle,” he explained.
“What they are doing in the PDP is not acceptable to us. We have taken time to read the APC manifesto and constitution, what attracted us to the party is party discipline and internal democracy.
“That was why we decided to consult widely and we met with all our leaders, and all our financiers, from Arthur Eze to Emeka Offor to Alex Ekwueme who formed the party, and these our leaders agree with us to move because we feel that we cannot move without their blessing.”
Nwoye promised to work with state APC chieftains such as Chris Ngige and Osita Izunaso to bring Anambra into the ranks of APC states.
He urged APC executive members to attend “the mother of all rallies” being planned, where tens of hundreds of PDP and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) members would join the APC.
Oyegun’s delight
Ngige may not be comfortable with some of the defectors. He was not at the meeting to welcome them. Nwoye is seen as his political opponent.
Nonetheless, Oyegun expressed happiness over the defection and said it would be in the national interest if South Easterners align with President Muhammadu Buhari’s resolve to tackle Nigeria’s multifaceted problems.
His words: “The manifestation of the so-called Biafra thing, the resurgence of cultism and criminality all over the nation show how close we were to the brink and the enormity of the job to be done by all.
“Whether you are Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa or minority like me, Bini, there is beauty in the size of Nigeria.
“We will be one of the front ranking nations on the face of this earth given our resources and the kind of aggressive positively directed character of our people.
“Think of the resources we have frittered away without preparing for a day, the condition that we are facing now. We had excess account but we had a government that was not thinking of turning it into a fortune that would sustain us.
“At the stage we are today we have to start reinventing ourselves. We are thinking about agriculture that no longer really exists, we are now thinking of mining that no longer exists because finally we are at rock bottom of oil money that no longer really exists.
“Before now our government took leave of the need to make the Nigerian nation great. These are the challenges that face us today.
“When you come here to say you are coming to join the progressive, I took the pain to be here to receive you wholeheartedly.”
