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ANAMBRA ’17: PDP crisis escalates as faction emerges, holds massive parallel rally

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PDP says Buhari's speech below expectation

The crisis brewing in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra State following its contentious primary for the forthcoming governorship election has escalated, with a new faction emerging and holding a parallel rally Monday.

The aggrieved members who turned out in large numbers, shunned the party’s governorship campaign flag-off in Onitsha, holding a parallel rally in Awka, Anambra State capital, instead, in show of rejection of Oseloka Obaze as the PDP candidate for the November election.

The large crowd of aggrieved PDP members who rallied at the Ekwueme Square, Awka, threatened to support a candidate of another party if within five days, the leadership of the PDP did not withdraw the candidacy of Obaze and replace him with any of the other governorship aspirants of the party.

The Awka rally had in attendance PDP grassroots leaders from across the 326 electoral wards in the 21 local governments of the state, who control major structures of the party, in addition to the party’s polling center agents across the state.

Read also: ANAMBRA ’17: Youths ‘brainwashed’ by IPOB now see reason to be part of election- Nwoye

The aggrieved members, chanting anti-Obaze songs, insisted that he was still a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and thus could not be imposed on the PDP as its flag bearer.

They also rejected the sidelining and relegation of what they described as original members of the party and the imposition of “outsiders” on the party. The protesting members, in their songs, also rejected former Governor Peter Obi of Anambra state, who is widely known to be Obaze’s political godfather.

They accused him of being a “meddlesome interloper” in the affairs of the PDP. They also protested against what they described as “undemocratic stance of the national leadership of the party on the process leading to the emergence of Obaze as flag-bearer.

Speaking at the rally, the factional leader of the aggrieved PDP members in Anambra, Prince Ken Emeakayi, told the crowd that “Obaze is not a registered member of the PDP and cannot be the candidate of the party.”

He said both “Obaze and Obi are not of the PDP but APGA and as such cannot represent the PDP.”

Emeakayi said, “Henry Oseloka Obaze is not a bonafide member of the PDP. He is not a registered member of the PDP. I am the PDP chairman in Anambra state and I have checked the register of all our members and his name is not there.

“We are the original members of the PDP and we cannot allow total outsiders to hijack our great party.

“We therefore give our national leadership five days ultimatum to do what is right.

“We give them five days to withdraw the name of Henry Oseloka Obaze as a candidate of our party and replace him with any of the other contestants who are all bonafide members of the PDP.

“If they fail to do so in the next five days, we the members of the PDP will take the bold step.

“If they refuse to do what is right in the next five days, we will move ahead enmasse to lend our full support to a candidate of any other party of our choice”.

Other leaders who spoke at the rally included, the former PDP Presidential coordinator in the state, Chief Okey Ezenwa who decried sidelining of real members of the party and the imposition of Obaze as PDP flagbearer, stating that there was no way bonafide members of the party could accept such aberration.

 

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0 Comments

  1. Oise Oikelomen

    October 17, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    And this is the party that wants to reclaim power at the center. Still a house of war.

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