The AnyiChuks Campaign Organization, the campaign organization of Dr. Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Ebonyi State governorship election, has appealed to party members to close ranks with a view to achieving the much needed liberation of the state in 2023.
This is as it dismissed claims by Senator Obinna Ogba that he remained the authentic candidate of the main opposition party in the state, warning that the much needed cohesion within the party could not be achieved through “falsehood or the telling of blatant lies.”
Senator Ogba, chairman of senate committee on sports, who emerged candidate in a now nullified rescheduled governorship primary held on Sunday, June 5, had addressed a press conference on Saturday, insisting that he remained the authentic candidate of the party in the state.
Meanwhile, a federal high court sitting in Abakaliki, had on Tuesday, June 7, nullified the rescheduled primary election, which was boycotted by ad-hoc party delegates, pronouncing it illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.
Addressing Ogba’s claims in a statement on Sunday by its director of media and publicity, Abia Onyike, the AnyiChucks Campaign Organization maintained that the Lagos-based industrialist is the only PDP governorship candidate whose name has since been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to Onyike in the statement titled, ‘The Time for Truth and Reconciliation has Come,’ the crisis in the party cannot persist without a resolution and the time to resolve it has come.
He said, “I wish to refer to the Press Conference addressed yesterday, 11th June, 2022 by Sen. Obinna Ogba and to react as follows:
“The crisis rocking the PDP in Ebonyi state is a self-inflicted logjam which came about because of weak leadership. However, the crisis cannot persist without a resolution and the time to resolve it has come, if the party must rise to the occasion in the state as a liberation movement in the hands of Ebonyi people to rescue themselves from the atrocities of the incumbent APC Government in the state.
“The resolution of the crisis could be achieved not through falsehood or the telling of blatant lies to the suffering people of Ebonyi. Our teeming members and the ordinary people on the streets need to be told the true situation of things so that they can face the situation squarely and take their destiny into their own hands.
“The PDP Governorship Candidate today is Dr Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odi. He won the Primary Election conducted by the PDP on 28 and 29 of May, 2022. The 3-man Delegates List used for the Primary Election was the outcome of the State PDP Congress of 7th May, 2022 which was eventually recognised by the PDP National Working Committee(NWC). That Primary Election was properly authorized by the PDP NWC and was peacefully conducted with the INEC mornitoring the exercise in line with the Electoral Guidelines and the 2022 Electoral Act. An attempt by the opposition to cancel the successfully conducted Primary Election suffered a set-back.”
The Campaign Organisation emphasized that the rescheduled primary which produced Ogba was undemocratic, and had been pushed for by forces that didn’t like the fact that Dr. Odii emerged candidate.
“The parallel primaries conducted on the 4th and 5th of June, was an anti-democratic intervention by some powerful forces who were hell-bent on reversing the popular will of the people. The ruling of the Federal High Court in Abakaliki on 7th June, 2022 restoring the authenticity of the first Primaries which elected Dr Odi was a historic confirmation of the democratic will of Ebonyi PDP cadres as against the dictatorship and imposition by a few Godfathers,” Onyike said.
“On the 10th of June, 2022, the National body of the Party obeyed the Court Order by forwarding the names of all the candidates elected during the legitimate Primaries of 28 and 29 June, 2022 to INEC and the processing of their forms have commenced.
“The PDP Governorship Candidate in the person of Dr Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odi is willing and ready to provide leadership and to reconcile the members of the party after the divisions arising from the internal power struggle.
“We appeal to the Leaders and members of our great Party in the state to embrace the path of maturity and reconciliation at this moment to enable us focus on the common enemy as we gradually approach the 2023 general elections. We should quickly recover from the fallouts of the primary elections and close ranks in the interest of our people and the future of the state.”