PDP Uba, Others, Face Sack

By Jude Atupulazi.

Apparently frustrated by the antics of some of its members who regularly work against the party during elections, the Anambra State Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has set up a committee to review the last governorship election in the state as it concerns the actions of some of its members.

Speaking, Tuesday, at a stakeholders’ meeting of the party held at Marble Arch Hotel, Awka, the state chairman of PDP, Chief Ndubisi Nwobu, said the committee had become necessary in order to seriously look into what cost the party victory in that election.

The decision to set up the committee, Fides gathered, might have been occasioned by the disenchantment of many members who frowned on the activities of those they described as turncoats who always sold out against the party during elections only to return thereafter.

Speaking earlier at the meeting, a member of the Board of Trustees of the party in the state, Senator Ben Ndi Obi, said it was time to sanction those working against the party, including those who had taken the party to court.

Sen Obi noted that the usual problems in the party which had been militating against it were still there and said the party failed in doing its duties by failing to sanction members dragging the party to court.

‘I will sanction that those people in court with us be sanctioned,’ he said, noting that the party needed to stay strong and united.

The state auditor of the party, Sir Obi Okechukwu, who spoke with other stakeholders, had also called for the sanctioning of such members.

It will be recalled that during the last electioneering period, many PDP members had decamped to the All Progressives Congress, APC, only for some of them to return to PDP after the election.

One of them, a member of the party’s BoT, Chief Chris Uba, had even gone to court against the party over the constitution of the delegates to the primary, while his brother, Sen Ugochukwu Uba, had challenged the emergence of Mr Valentine Ozigbo as the party’s guber candidate.

But many of those at the meeting warned the party against tolerating such members further, and demanded that such members should, rather than be given VIP treatment, be relegated to the back seat if they decided to return.

Fides could not ascertain the membership of the election review committee, its terms of reference or when they will start work.

Meanwhile, the guber candidate of PDP in the last election, Mr Ozigbo, In his goodwill message, thanked members of the party for their various roles during last election, noting that PDP remained the winner.

He also lent voice to calls to clean up the party, noting that he preferred those who left and openly worked against the party to those who pretended they were with the party while silently working against it.

He however thanked the leaders of the party in the state for their efforts during the period.