- As Okonkwo says He, other stakeholders are in PDP to save Igbo race
Trouble is brewing for the Presidential aspirations of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar as aspirants from the Anambra North and South Senatorial Zones boycotted the inauguration of the Presidential Campaign Council in the State.
Only PDP candidates from the Anambra Central zone where the Director of the Atiku-Okowa 2023 Presidential Campaign Committee (PDP), Professor Obiora Okonkwo comes from graced the event. However, Senator Uche Ekwunife, the Senator representing the zone who is also running for reelection did not attend.
The Senatorial candidates for Anambra North, Senator Stella Oduah, and her counterpart from Anambra South, Chief Chris Uba, also boycotted the inauguration. In the same vein, none of the State House of Assembly and House of Representatives candidates from the two zones attended the event.
The grouse of the PDP members and candidates who boycotted the event is that the membership of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in the State is dominated by only those who worked closely with Okonkwo as Governorship candidate of the PDP and later the Zenith Labour Party in the 2021 election.
A source said that “it is like the Director of the Director of the Atiku-Okowa 2023 Presidential Campaign Committee (PDP) in the State stuffed the campaign committee with only loyalists, as if he was using the platform to launch the next Governorship election in the State. it is like a coronation for the Director as the next PDP Governorship candidate in the State.”
The source alleged that the State Director of the Campaign even removed the names of chairmen of the party in 14 Local Government Areas of the State not under its control and installed new ones.
Speaking at the inauguration, Professor Okonkwo, a top businessman and owner of United Nigeria Airlines, said his presence along with other notable Igbo leaders in the PDP is to save the Igbo race.
Okonkwo, who spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Presidential Campaign Council in Awka on Tuesday warned that politics played with sentiment, emotion and anger does not give the right political result.
For this reason, he said, one must form alliances with others to win “as we cannot win all by ourselves.”
On the party’s Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, Okonkwo said no Nigerian politician alive has invested more than Atiku in Nigeria nor has more experience and passion for Ndi Igbo than him.
He said: “Given the fault lines and divisions that have exacerbated in the past 7 years he will bring the country together for as Jesus Christ admonished us in Matthew 12:25: Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. There is no gainsaying that years, Nigeria needs a towering, patriotic and detribalized statesman as
national unity is fundamental to development”.
On the chances of PDP in the 2023 general elections, Okonkwo described PDP as an institution and a political party that has at least one vote in every polling booth in Nigeria.
Earlier, while inaugurating the council, the State chairman, Senator Ben Ndi Obi said that with the calibre of members, he is confidence PDP will coast to victory in the election.
He reiterated Atiku’s love for Ndi Igbo which lead him to choose him and Mr. Peter Obi as running mates in 2007 and 2019.
He said: “Atiku practically demonstrated his love and trust for Igbo man. In 2007, he chose me to be his running mate. In 2019, he chose Peter Obi as his running mate. Same year 2019 he appointed me Pro-Chancellor and chairman, Board of Trustees, chairman, Governing Council of the University he founded; the American University of Nigeria.“