A crisis of confidence is brewing among leaders of the People’s Democratic Party over the position of National Secretary which was zoned to the South East.
It was gathered in Abuja, on Monday, that while some party leaders announced Senator Sam Anyanwu from Imo State, as the zonal consensus candidate, a party chieftain from Anambra State, Oke Omuo-aroh, who is also contesting for the position, said claims of a consensus candidate was false.
Both Anyanwu and Omuo-aroh were at the PDP National Secretariat to submit their expression of interest and nomination forms.
Anyanwu, who came in the company of the southeast PDP zonal chairman, Ali Odefa, said he was elected as the consensus candidate by an overwhelming majority of party members in the zone.
He denied allegations that he was being imposed on the party by interests outside of the South East.
Anyanwu said, “I can never be imposed by anybody because I am a moving machine for the party.
“I have never lost an election in PDP even when it mattered most, I have always won in Imo state. In the South East, Anambra, Enugu, Imo, Abia, and Ebonyi, there is no leader that does not know who I am.
“I am a very humble person; I am very humane and of course a pure and true loyal party member that everybody wants to listen to. There is no problem in the South East. “I know even before my emergence as the National Secretary of the party, there are a lot of indications that there will be a tsunami in the next few weeks in Imo state.
“Those who are going to move out from the All Progressives Congress because of hearing my name as the national Secretary of the party. I think I will not disappoint.”
Asked if he was the choice of the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, he said, “I was nominated by consensus by governors and leaders of the South East. Governor Wike is not from the South East and couldn’t have played a role in my emergence.”
However, Omuo-aroh who spoke to reporters after submitting his forms, said claims of a consensus were untrue. He explained that contrary to what was being peddled, the position was micro-zoned to Anambra State not Imo.
Omuo-aroh said, “Some people are branding that there was a consensus candidate, this is the bane of the party in this south East.
“A situation where the party in its wisdom zoned offices to the southeast, and nobody was privy to any arrangement order that we heard that the office of the National Secretary has been zoned to Anambra auditor to Imo state.
“That was why I and CID (Maduagbum) and Osita Chidoka started consultations. Only for us to come to Enugu on Thursday, and the zonal chairman said that the governors will brief us.
“Governor Ifianyi Ugwuanyi, introduced Governor Okezie Ikpazu and Ikpazu read from a script, and said that they changed their minds, they now put the Secretary to Imo state, and they have already had a candidate in the person of Anyanwu and they called somebody from Anambra as the auditor.
“So, on that basis, the people of Anambra totally reject that so-called arrangement.”
Punch
