UGWUANYI-OK WHO’S the Enugu governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? This is the question begging for answer in the state, as the contenders to the governorship ticket resort to the courts for reprieve.
However, anybody conversant with the PDP in Enugu would readily agree that the parallel primaries that befell the party last week were expected.
The exercises, meant to produce one candidate for each of the elective offices ended up producing numerous candidates claiming authenticity.
Those close to power in the state believe that the situation arose following the determination of certain members of the party to foist their wishes on the handicapped electorate, who have resigned to fate over the seeming one-party system that has dominated the state.
The PDP in Enugu has suffered series of crisis. Although the party had always managed to win elections apparently due to government machinery, its underbelly speaks volumes of disunity caused by bottled-anger over alleged unfairness in the distribution of resources and appointments, as well as the use-and-dump tactics in preference for those that have nothing to do with the party.
In line with its tradition of maneuvering affairs for pre-determined agenda, the state chapter of the party on December 8, 2014 went into the governorship primary election to produce a candidate that would represent it in the February 2015 general elections. But true to its character, it ended up producing four candidates.
Those laying claim to the governorship ticket are: Senator Ayogu Eze, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Prof. Onyeke Onyeke and Dr. Samuel Onyishi.
Of the four, however, Eze and Ugwuanyi have remained prominent at daggers-drawn following parallel primaries each of them held at separate locations in the state.
The duo of Onyeke and Onyishi neither held their primaries nor participated in any of the two separate primaries organised by Eze and
Ugwuanyi. They preferred to send strongly-worded protest letters to the national leadership of the party over the exercise.
The Guardian gathered that the separate primaries followed the resolve of some stakeholders of the party in the state to throw up a particular aspirant as the party flagbearer in the general elections, especially since the aspirant had allegedly enjoyed the sympathy of the state Governor, Mr. Sullivan Chime.
To achieve the objective, they were said to have allegedly subverted the list of delegates who emerged from the November 1 ad-hoc ward congress held throughout the state.
The same list of delegates was reportedly used to conduct the PDP
House/National Assembly primaries, especially for those that participated in the exercise.
It could be recalled that following the lingering crisis in the party in Enugu that suddenly led to the resignation of its chairman, Vita Abba, a few days to the delegates’ congress, the faction of the party loyal to Governor Chime failed to hold a congress, while the other faction loyal to the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, held congress in the 260 wards of the state.
In various protests to the national leadership of the PDP, the Chime faction, which included statutory delegates, had claimed that “no congress held in Enugu on November 1” and had attempted, to no avail, to get the party to conduct a fresh congress in the state.
Nonetheless, in an attempt to protect the outcome of the congress, the Ekweremadu group, which boasts of the two other senators in the state — Eze and Gilbert Nnaji, and some members of the House of Representatives, among others, had dragged the party to a Federal High Court in Abuja.
On November 24, the Abuja court, in a ruling by Justice A.F.A Ademola, upheld the list of delegates that emerged from the November 1 congress as the only valid list for the PDP delegates for the primaries of the party in Enugu State.
The Court, which held that the delegates, having been elected, had certain rights, barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and PDP from accepting any other list of delegates for the party primaries other than that of November 1.
On December 8, therefore, it was expected that the PDP governorship primaries committee, led by His Highness, Asara A. Asara, would use the November 1 delegates’ list in conducting the primaries for the party governorship candidate among the contestants. This was not the case.
Apparently to clear himself from an alleged underhand deal over the list, Asara, at about noon the same day, summoned a meeting with the governorship aspirants at a location in Enugu. He said the parley was to apprise them with the mission of his committee.
Those in attendance at the meeting were the governorship aspirants, including Eze, Ugwuanyi, Onyeke, Onyishi, Eugene Odo, Chinedu Onu and Anayo Onwuegbu.
Asara told the aspirants that the meeting was called to interface and know their concerns over the governorship primaries.
Although Onwuegbu had risen to announce his decision to step down from the race, following what he desired as “in the interest of peace” of the state, others stayed behind to ventilate their feelings on the process.
Senator Eze began by disclosing that his delegates from Enugu North and Enugu East senatorial zones were denied accreditation, even though they were duly elected to participate in the governorship primaries.
“The people from Enugu North/East were turned back, but I think the people from Enugu West were allowed to do accreditation,” he said.
“I did not keep the list of the people from Enugu West, but I found out that the delegates from Enugu West, elected on November I, were able to do their accreditation and allowed to vote.
“The people from the two other zones (Enugu North/East) were told that their names were not on the list sent from Abuja. That is why I want to crosscheck the list that you (Asara’s committee) have, to see whether it is the same list of delegates certified by the Federal High Court, Abuja, as authentic delegates that emerged from the November 1 ward congress.”
The committee chairman, Asara, had declined to present the list but persuaded Eze to bring the list he had, to enable him do the crosschecking himself. Eze obliged him.
HAVING gone through the list and apparently spotted some differences,
Asara said: “The list you have given to me is not the list we have here. The list we have here is the list given to us by the national headquarters and it is what we are going to use to conduct the primary.
“What you have given to me is the certified true copy of delegates list from the Abuja High Court. But we don’t have it and so we will not use it to conduct this exercise.”
A bewildered Senator Eze said: “In that case, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for me, as somebody who knows the process of the law, to go and submit myself to a process where my own delegates, who were duly elected, were disenfranchised even before the start of the process.
“I want to put it on record in your presence that I will go to those duly-elected delegates, recognised by the courts and which the national executive of the party recognised as duly-elected as the ones who can actually elect any candidate. And anything outside that, in my own opinion, is abuse of process of court and abuse of our law.
“I want to say here clearly that you won’t expect me in that venue where you are going to do your own (primaries) because first, I will be committing an illegality.
“I will be working into a booby trap knowing full well that my own delegates are disenfranchised; knowing that the result had already been decided even before the process had commenced.
“It is like knowing the result of the mathematical equation before you solve the problem.”
Senator Eze also said that he wanted to put it on record that, “this is what I am going to do — to allow the lawful delegates to use their own initiatives to decide the candidates they want.”
“They went through a process and now you unilaterally remove their names from the list,” he said, insisting that, “I cannot blame you (Asara), sir, or any member of your panel.
“I need to say that as a law-abiding citizen of Nigeria, politics is not a do-or-die affair. I am prepared to accept a result of an election where if I have lost in a transparent manner, I will embrace and accept it fair and square and walk away.
“If I don’t understand the process, I will insist that the right things should be done. I will seek permission to step aside but not like the other man who had stepped down because, as far as I am concerned, I am still in the race.”
Another aspirant, Prof. Onyeke, complained: “I want this message to be taken to the headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party because as we are talking, I am sitting down here with two court cases and none is being observed.
“The first one is that the chairman that was addressed as the state chairman (Ikeje Asogwa) is not recognised by the party and court. The man that was recognised as the chairman of the party in Enugu is Elder David Aja.
“I can’t see Elder Aja here; which means any exercise that is being carried out here without him is illegal, null and void.
“Secondly, the observation made by the Distinguished Senator is well taken; that decision is already being taken if the people that Enugu State people elected to participate in the gubernatorial primaries are not on the list that came from the national secretariat.”
Prof. Onyeke added: “We are yet to be advised that the decision of the court had been changed with respect to who our state chairman is.
“We are yet to be advised with respect to why a delegate will be qualified to elect candidates to our state House of Assembly, qualified to House of Representatives and Senate but that delegate is not qualified to elect candidate for the governorship election.
“That is inconsistency from the party and this is a party Prof. Onyeke O. Onyeke has been part of in rejuvenating, rehabilitating and resuscitating to a point where we are today.”
Dr. Onyishi also complained that his delegates, who voted in the previous primaries in the state, were not accredited to vote in the December 8 governorship primaries.
He explained that before that day, he had petitioned the party over certain anomalies going on in Enugu State.
The entreaties, notwithstanding, Asara insisted on conducting the primary election with the alleged list from the national headquarters, and the aggrieved aspirants stormed out of the venue of the meeting.
Thereafter, Senator Eze emerged as the “ governorship candidate” from a parallel primary poll that held at the Filbon Hotel, beating six other aspirants after polling 526 votes.
Hon. Ugwuanyi had also emerged from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium after beating Eugene Odo (former Speaker of the Enugu House of Assembly), who was his only opponent.
Now, the outcome of the governorship primaries has shifted to the courts.
An Enugu High Court, in a suit filed by Ugwuanyi, has restrained Senator Eze from parading himself as the governorship candidate of the PDP in the state.
Likewise, Senator Eze has responded and filed a suit at the Federal High
Court, Abuja, asking for an order barring the PDP and INEC from accepting the list or any other governorship candidate from Enugu other than himself.
Considering the way the matter is going, it will take only a pronouncement of the court, for now, for anybody to claim being the “authentic” governorship candidate of the Enugu PDP.
THE GUARDIAN
