Chime Successor:Enugu State PDP Divided Over Choice Of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi

Ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primary election in Enugu State, the state’s caucus of the party is now divided over what they termed an attempt to impose a candi­date.

A few weeks ago, the Nsukka zone, which is scheduled to produce the next governor of Enugu State, after Governor Sullivan Chime, endorsed Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi as the consensus candi­date for next year’s governorship election. The Enugu East caucus had also followed suit, in similar endorsement.

To register their opposition on the choice of a consensus candidate, some prominent members of the PDP caucus in the state boycotted a meet­ing held last Saturday, to register disapproval of what they described as the “brazen attempt by one man and a few people around him to impose an unpopular candidate on the party.” They ac­cuse Governor Sullivan Chime of being behind the selection of Ugwuanyi. Among the prominent party stalwarts, who did not attend the meeting are the Deputy Sen­ate President, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu; former governor of old Anambra State, Sen. Jim Nwobodo, Sen. Fidelis Okoro, Rear Admiral Al­lison Madueke, Chief Anayo Onwuegbu, former Information Minister, Frank Nweke Jnr; former Power Minister, Prof. Barth Nnaji, former Foreign Affairs Minister, Hon. Dubem Onyia, Senator Ayogu Eze, Senator Ken Nnamani, who was out of the country the day the meeting held, among many other prominent members of the caucus.

Some of the leaders, it was gathered, said they would not offer themselves as willing tools for the simple reason of rubberstamping a handpicked candidate of the governor’s choice. Some of them, it was learnt, said they could not be fooled by the governor, who alienated himself from the people, for the better part of eight years

It was also gathered that those who stayed away from the Saturday meeting were unhappy when they were briefed that the first meeting, where Ugwuanyi was picked, did not give room for those who had contrary view to speak.

According to one of the PDP elders from the state, “some of those who attended the meeting said they were surprised by the haste with which the meeting was conducted and the fact that not a single person was allowed to make a com­ment at the meeting, save the motion moved and seconded by people appointed to do so by the governor himself.” Some of the elder who boycotted Saturday’s meeting, said there was no way they would have attended the meeting when the party had come out to declare such endorsement by the state chap­ter of the party illegal and of no effect. “There is no way I would have joined them to flout the instruction and guideline of the party. No way. The PDP constitution is superior to any individual in the party, no matter how highly placed,” one of them said.

Ever since the picking of the consensus candi­date, Senator Eze, who is interested in becoming next governor, has been leading the campaign against Ugwuanyi’s emergence