By Peter Okutu

ABAKALIKI—THE Ebonyi State Council of Elders of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Tuesday emphasized that the reason it decided to reject Governor Martin Elechi’s governorship candidate was because of his autocratic disposition towards issues affecting the state.

According to the Elders, the governor unilaterally nominated Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu as his preferred candidate for the PDP governorship ticket without consulting the elders as was done in 2007 before he emerged governor on the platform of the PDP.

Briefing newsmen at the end of its meeting in Abakaliki, the chairman, Council of Elders of Ebonyi State PDP, Ambassador Franklin Ogbuewu, stated that efforts made by the Council to make the governor democratize the transition process was rebuffed by him as the Council had no other choice than to back a candidate different from his.

Ogbuewu stressed that between August and November last year, each member of the council participated in various fora where Governor Elechi canvassed support for power shift from Ebonyi Central to South senatorial zone of the state.

According to him, it is not the right of the governor to further back a candidate ( Sir Edward Nkwegu) from the old Abakaliki bloc which had already produced a governor for 16 years.

“If the governor was properly and wisely advised, he ought to have a clean break and join the Labour party.

‘’His manipulative claim to remain in the PDP while the entire structures of his government and all the expenditure of that government go to the Labour party are totally unacceptable to this council and to the generality of Ebonyi people.

“The attacks by Governor Elechi on prominent sons of the state, such as Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, the former Minister and Ambassador of Nigeria, Chief Franklin Ogbuewu, and former INEC Commissioner, Chief Fidelis Nwankwo, stand condemned by this council and we caution our governor to desist from statements capable of maligning, tarnishing or defaming law-abiding citizens whose interests he was elected to serve,” Ambassador Ogbuewu said.