Beware of booby-traps, Enugu professionals advise Chime
By TONY EDIKE
ENUGU—THE Association of Enugu State Professionals has said the removal of Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo as Peoples Democratic Party’s national chairman might not bring the necessary respite needed by Governor Sullivan Chime for an unfettered return to Government House in May, saying there were other obstacles that could mar his ambition.
In a statement issued in Enugu and signed by its president, Dr. Didi Okoro Didi, the group asked the governor to beware of more booby-traps already laid for him.
In the statement entitled “After Nwodo’s exit, what next for PDP in Enugu state?”, the group pointed out that “it is clear that state political elite and the masses in the state are not comfortable with some of the policies regarding party primaries.”
Meanwhile, Governor Sullivan Chime declared yesterday that the tenure of the former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, constituted a major distraction to his administration.
Chime, who made the declaration during an interaction with journalists in Enugu, said the emergence of Nwodo as the party’s chairman was a problem his administration created, lamenting that since the past five weeks, he had not been to his office or do anything tangible until Monday, January 24, 2011.
The governor insisted that the current internal crisis rocking the state chapter of the PDP was not caused by party members but rather the handiwork of “strangers we found in our midst who came to distraught us; at a stage it became laughable.”
Reviewing the sad development in the state since the emergence of Nwodo, Chime said: “We were distracted by what we brought up, an evil. It was a complete distraction and we did not expect it to happen, but we thank God that it is now history.”
He revealed that Nwodo was not a registered member of the party in the state or in his ward before he was made national chairman, adding that Nwodo came back and said he was back as a party man, “not knowing the system, not knowing he has to be properly registered.
“But unknown to us, he did not do what he was suppose to do. To be a member of the PDP, you must register. They can give you a card but your name must be in the party register and you pay the necessary fee. He didn’t do all these things. We did not refuse to register him; he refused to do the right thing.”
On the claim by one of the PDP gubernatorial aspirants, Engr. Anayo Onwuegbu, that he was the PDP governorship candidate for the April 2011 elections, Chime said “ we wish the person and his supporters well.”
“If at the end of the week some people still parade themselves, we will stop them. Nobody can confuse our electorate with the name of the PDP they should come back to the mainstream PDP.
“Today, I and my Deputy Governor, whom I have re-nominated filled our INEC forms and tomorrow we will return it to Abuja. Once we are done with that any person who tries that will be stopped. Our party, the PDP has forwarded the names of our candidates for president, gubernatorial and senatorial candidates to INEC.”
Chime declared that there are no parallel PDP state executive committee in Enugu State except the one led by Engr. Vita Abba and pointed out that those who were at the forefront of that claim in 2008 where members of the Ebeano family who have since left the PDP for Peoples for democratic Change, PDC.
The governor recalled that in 2006/2007 when he was campaigning for the office, he told the electorate that he would allow his activities in government to campaign for him when he would be seeking for re-election.
“I can beat my chest about this. I have fulfil my pledge in the sense that in 2011 rather than play jingles, rather than sing songs telling people what I have done, people come to me to thank me for what I have done,” he said.
Dr. Didi further hinted that more dangerous for Chime is the fact that many of his associates, aides and present state and National Assembly members supposed to be in league with the governor in plotting strategies for the next election appear to moles for certain leaders who would not want him to make it in his second term bid.
The association pointed out, for instance, that whereas Chime’s predecessor and estranged political god father, Senator Chimaroke Nnamni, and his associates in his new political platform, People For Democratic Change, were busy planning to grapple with the election proper and apparently to stop the governor, he appears to be depending on certain persons around him who also appeared to have their heart in the new platform.
It said the former governor had honed his ever ready deft political strategy and appeared set to clinch Enugu East senatorial seat again under PDC and that pairing him with a weaker candidate of the PDP will be a grievous political mistake on the part of Chime
The association pointed out that, for instance, in the case of that knotty situation in Enugu East senatorial district over the National Assembly primaries, it appeared Chime was confused over the choice of either a business mogul, Chief Everest Nnaji, or House of Representative member, Gil Nnaji, for the senate.
According to the statement, whereas it appears clear that the people of the zone want the business man, some people who are working clandestinely against the governor are giving him the impression that the legislator will be more suitable for the post.
”Quite alarming is the wrong impression they are giving to Governor Chime when in the real sense they are working against come April election,” the group cautioned.
It also stated that “it will be a terrible mistake to underrate Dr. Nnamani and his new party, the PDC by picking weak candidates on the platform of the PDP to confront them. This, indeed, is the biggest danger facing PDP in the state now that Nwodo is gone.
There have been conflicting signals as to which of the two senatorial aspirants from the East senatorial zone actually has the ticket, and whereas some said the business man was anointed by the governor, others have also said that the governor might have shifted the choice to the incumbent legislator who is said to be preferred by deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu.
