Blame Chris Uba, Oduah, Ukachukwu If Anambra PDP Fails To Field Legislative Candidates In 2023 —Ozigbo Writes National Chairman
Valentine Ozigbo, Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate who lost the November 6, 2021, governorship election in Anambra has accused Chris Uba of sabotaging the party’s interest in the state.
Ozigbo who was in the race for the PDP ticket to contest the Anambra south senatorial election also announced his withdrawal from the exercise.
He disclosed this in a letter to the national chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu.
According to him, the actions of Uba, Linus Ukachukwu, Stella Oduah and Uche Ekwunife, all leaders of the party, may cost it the opportunity to field candidates for Senatorial, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly seats in the forthcoming elections.
He accused them of impunity and hijacking the panel and results sheet for the congress expected to take place in the wards across the state.
“In the case of Ward and Local government congresses, you listened to many leaders at the meeting of May 19, 2022, on how Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and Elder Emma Ogidi-led teams conducted excellent congresses, and subsequently, NWC approved the exercises. Despite this, the usual suspects rushed to court and procured an interlocutory order purporting to enable them to foist a list of their surrogates as delegates on the party,” part of the letter read.
“Shockingly, some of our officers at PDP headquarters, instead of challenging the order, were in a hurry to write to INEC to submit the court procured list of delegates which is totally different from what the NWC ratified. Thankfully, a court of competent jurisdiction issued a judgment, superior to the interlocutory order, affirming the decision of the NWC.
“But, it is now in the open that there is an effort being made to ignore the judgement of the court and persist in the plot to use an illegal list compiled by a coalition of deceit led by Senator Uche Ekwunife, Chief Uba, Linus Ukachukwu, and now Senator Stella Oduah. Yes, the same Senator Oduah who deserted the party and joined APC during the governorship elections is being warmly received and rehabilitated into the party to the chagrin of our loyal party members!
“Sir, I would like to state this clearly. THE ACTIONS OF CHRIS UBA AND LINUS UKACHUKWU, WITH THE SUPPORT OF UCHE EKWUNIFE, AND STELLA ODUAH, AND A FEW OTHERS ARE THE REASONS PDP IN ANAMBRA MAY END UP FIELDING NO CANDIDATE IN THE 2023 ELECTIONS.
“The overwhelming evidence of the complicity of some members of the NWC continued to manifest in the intervening days leading up to the final clearance of aspirants to participate in the party primaries. Before the exercise, Chris Uba had openly boasted that he was going to use the screening panel, made up of his minions to disqualify me and other aspirants who do not kowtow to his brutish methods and he would also use the appeal panel, still made up of his puppets, to ensure that the dubious disqualifications were upheld.
“Lo, and behold, some members of the screening committees turned out to be domestic staff of Chief Chris Uba. Not only that, there were last-minute switching of names to suit his agenda of playing the politics of disqualification and subsequent media smears. Despite widespread reservations, I appeared before the panel and everything went well, or so I thought. Only for a report, allegedly drafted in the home of Chris Uba and disqualifying me, appeared and went viral.
“The ‘report’, which embarrassed the entire PDP community nationwide, relied on a fictitious conversation that never occurred, and arguments that have no basis in the electoral law to reach such a retrogressive decision. It took several interventions for that illegality to be corrected and I was cleared. The same kind of comedic politics played out again at the Appeal Panel which was chaired by another stooge of Chris Uba. It took the high-profile intervention of the National Working Committee to do away with the extreme illegality and violation of due process enacted in the Appeal Panel report, and I was issued with a final certificate of clearance to contest in the Primary of the Senatorial Seat for Anambra South.
“Your Excellency, I am afraid that the entire process leading up to preparing the PDP Anambra Chapter for the primary is fundamentally flawed and I will not dignify this mockery of due process and blatant disregard for decency with my continued participation. With this, I, hereby, withdraw from the contest for the Senatorial seat for Anambra South.
“For posterity, may I say this: Evil comes in many colours. In PDP Anambra, its primary colour is Chris Uba. The secondary colours are in the National Working Committee of the Party that enabled him and his cohorts. We have, for too long, lost sight of what’s important. We have, as a party in Anambra State, focused on the ego and the power play that creates characters like Chris Uba in our midst.
“These fundamental problems cannot be addressed by genuflecting to the discredited notion that regards every long-standing member of the PDP as a “leader” or “stakeholder”. It is time we define what leadership means to us in the PDP. I believe that leaders should be determined not by age or years in the party but by their character that upholds the principles of justice, fairness, and transparency; by their contribution, which builds up our party; and by their political ideology of inclusiveness, development, and growth.
“Our real problem lies in the blatant disregard for the rule of law. Instead of joining Chris Uba’s devious game of musical chairs, we ought instead to focus on how to clean the house and restore peace, order, and unity to the PDP.
It is imperative that the PDP, which you lead, makes this our focus if we wish to remain a party of the people in Anambra and take power at the centre in 2023; or else, we are in for a rude awakening.
Too many of our members have had their investments in the party destroyed by the actions of Chris Uba and his cohort and their anger boils over. Soon there may be no meaningful PDP in Anambra state.
“I wish to make the following recommendations on urgent steps that should be taken by you, Sir, to begin to correct these grievous and avoidable errors. Reorientate the NWC to stand on the side of due process in all their actions, especially as they relate to Anambra State.
“Hold Chris Uba and his co-travellers accountable for the fate of Anambra aspirants in the upcoming elections. Apologise to Ndi Anambra and the PDP faithful for the missteps that have disenfranchised them in the state and national primaries. Abide by the process and structure in the PDP which recognizes me as the rallying point of leadership among respectable and responsible leaders of the PDP in Anambra.
“Investigate these excesses and flagrant abuse of power and office, and discipline all those that had been used to perpetrate evil in PDP Anambra State. May this ugly episode in PDP Anambra be an opportunity to commit to reclaiming the soul of our party from those sworn to its destruction, and it begins with telling the true story of how we got here.”