2010: Ogbulafor insists on Soludo’s candidature

By Dayo Benson, Vincent Ujumadu & Umar Yusuf

As controversy trails the choice of Professor Chukwuma Soludo as Anambra State governorship candidate, party national chairman, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, insisted weekend  that the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor remained PDP candidate.

Ogbulafor’s insistence came on the heels of Anambra PDP political godfather Chief Chris Uba’s comment that nobody could  frustrate him out of PDP. Uba spoke while denying report that he had dumped PDP for Peoples Progressive Alliance PPA, just as PPA governorship candidate in the state, Mr.Uche Ekwunife, also dismissed insinuations that she was Uba’s candidate

Ugbolafor told correspondents at the Yola Airport that the Nigeria Court cannot determine for the PDP  who becomes their candidate.

“In the Anambra case, we have done all that is possible to bring the aspirants to a round table conference, but to no avail. Even if we give them 2 years to produce a governorship candidate through consensus, we discovered that it is impossible to achieve that.

The National Working Committee and the Board of Trustee of the PDP looked into its constitution and used article 17 (1) to pick a candidate,” the National Chairman declared.

He said it was the only option left for the party to get off the political quagmire in Anambra State, adding that no Court can determine for the PDP who becomes their candidate, because it is not the duty of the court.

Asked why the PDP is characterised by deep crisis under his tenure, the National Chairman stated that politics is all about conflicts and resolution, adding that if there is conflict anywhere, the duty of the National Working Committee is to resolve the conflict not to inflate it in order to give the executive enabling environment to perform.

He disclosed that tremendous efforts were been put in place to resolve all the crisis within the party at all levels of governance in the country.

The PDP National Chairman added that it was the same conflict resolution mission that the (NWC) of the party was returning from Taraba State, adding that in the course of resolving the conflict in Taraba, PDP received thousands of decampees from the ANPP, Action Congress, AC and other major parties.