…Abia Speaker wins Reps Seat
The All Progressive Grand Alliance, (APGA) and other political parties may soon become richer with some prominent members of the the PDP set to dump the umbrella parties soon.
This development is resultant from the alleged plans to impose Prof Uche Ikonne as the preferred candidate of the PDP as well as the use of the disputed 3-man delegates for last Sunday’s primary elections for House of Representatives and State House of Assembly.
Also, the results of last Sunday’s primary elections which saw some popular and grassroots politicians like Hon Ginger Onwusibe losing woefully to a less known politician, has further quickened the vehicle of mass exodus of some top politicians from the PDP.
To this end, APGA has intensified efforts to capture Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, Hon Ginger Onwusibe and other grassroots politicians in PDP who are dissatisfied with events in their party.
This strategy, according to an inside source in APGA, is to help the cork party to capture Abia State in 2023, reaping from PDP’s crises.
So far, the highest ranking officer in APGA in the State, Hon Obinna Ichita has paid a visit to Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and urged him to join APGA.
Ichita, who represents Aba South constituency in Abia State House of Assembly told Abaribe to join APGA’s crusade to enthrone good leadership in Abia.
Earlier before now, Prof Greg Ibe, the founder of Gregory University, Uturu had dumped PDP for APGA to realise his guber ambition, after it appeared that Prof Uche Ikonne was the preferred candidate of his former party.
During last Sunday’s primary elections, Hon Ginger Onwusibe, a former LGA Chairman of Isiala Ngwa North in Abia State and presently the member representing Isiala Ngwa North in the State legislature, lost his re-election bid to Ugochukwu Iheonunekwu, a retired federal security personnel.
His loss has become a star story in the State as he shockingly scored only 3 votes while the winner got 27 votes to emerge PDP’s candidate for the House of Assembly seat.
Popularly known as Otawike (The Task Force), Ginger commands the second largest base of grassroots followers in Ngwa sub region politics after Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe on the other hand, is known as Ala Asaala (The land is wide) in Abia State politics and is also reputed to control the largest base of grassroots mobilisation in Ngwa nation, a capacity that has seen him remain in power since 1999 till date.
Chigozie Awom, media officer of Abaribe said his boss was yet to make a pronouncement about his next step.
The impending exit of these figures, coupled with the unresolved zoning issues in the is expected to shake its foundations and hand over victory to opposition parties, unless the crises are solved soon.
But a source inside PDP Secretariat in Umuahia assured that the party has the mechanism to reconcile winners with losers.
The party official urged all losers to accept defeat and support the winners to victory, in the interest of party loyalty and unity.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Hon Chinedum Orji has won the ticket to contest the House of Representatives seat for PDP.
He scored 86 votes to defeat his closest rival, Chief Obi Aguocha, the President-general of Ohuhu Welfare Union worldwide who scored only 8 votes.
Pastor Ugochukwu Uchegbu of Winners chapel Church defeated Mr Eze Okwulehie and other aspirants to win the Umuahia Central House of Assembly seat while Mr Kelechi Nwakodo won Umuahia East seat.
Jerry Uzosike won a return ticket to contest Umuahia South Seat while Val Nnenna won Ohafia South.
Mandela Obasi won a return ticket to go the House to represent Ohafia North for the third time while Chief Raymond Onyinyechi Ofoegbu won the Umuahia North constituency ticket.
Erondu Erondu Jr won the Obingwa West PDP West ticket, defeating Enyinnaya Appolos, former Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ikpeazu.
News Echo, which monitored some of the primary elections, gathered that the exercises were mostly free of violence but not free from complaints.
However, in most of the contests like in Abriba, Umuahia North, Isiala Ngwa North, some opponents to the winners alleged that they were not satisfied with the process that produced the winners, especially the controversial 3-man delegates’ lists which they blamed for their defeat.
