New Telegraph

Crisis rocks Anambra PDP over National Auditor’s position

The consensus candidacy of Mr. Obi Okechukwu as the National Auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is currently causing a crisis within the ranks of the party in Anambra State. As a result of this development, some members of the party in the state have petitioned its national leadership, rejecting Obi’s nomination as consensus candidate ahead of the party’s National Convention on Friday and called for an urgent meeting of the state caucus in conformity with the party’s constitution.

Leading the group is the former Deputy Chairman of the party in Anambra State, Chief Amaechi Onowu, and in a petition signed by him and copies of which were sent to the leader of the party in the state, Mr. Peter Obi and gubernatorial candidate, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo, he regretted that such consensus was never discussed.

Onowu said rather, the consensus candidacy of Mr. Obi Okechukwu for the PDP National Auditor position in the forthcoming National Convention of the party was announced in a press statement signed by the South-East Zonal Vice-Chairman of the party, Chief Ali Odefa. He said: “For emphasis, I joined PDP at the formative stage in 1998 with Dr. Alex Ekwueme. I have been in PDP till date, hardly any critical stakeholder of the party in Anambra State that is unknown to me.

“From 1998 till date, it has been the norm that the position of a National Officer be discussed and agreed upon by major stakeholders of the party in Anambra State. But I am not aware of any meeting held either within Anambra State or beyond, where the said ‘consensus’ candidate was discussed or agreed upon.” Onowu said following what he called embarrassing receipt of the press statement by Chief Odefa, he moved to know how and when the consensus agreement was reached, only to discover that one of the PDP leaders from Anambra State connived with some leaders outside the state to impose Mr. Obi Okechukwu on the party members.

“From my investigations, the said Mr. Obi Okechukwu has never been an executive or major stakeholder of the party at either the Ward, LGA or State level, but just a personal associate of the leader. “Let us recall that we lost some State, National Assembly, party executives, BOT members and other big stakeholders to other political parties, based on the outcome of our last governorship primary.

“This new style of imposing strangers on the party despite having qualified loyal party men and women, who have laboured for the party is unacceptable and should be resisted by all party members. We should not kill the reward system that used to be the norm in Anambra State PDP and Nigeria in general,” he said. Accordingly, Onowu reject the purported consensus agreement on Mr. Obi Okechukwu, and called on all loyal party members in the state to also reject it.

He advised the State Chairman of the party to urgently convene a State Caucus meeting based on Section 22 of our party’s constitution, to reach a consensus agreement before the National Convention, scheduled to hold next Friday and Saturday.

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