N1.4b campaign fund:Imo PDP, miasma of greedy politicians and challenging NWC to action

By Luke Idoko

While I was growing up in the streets of Makurdi, Benue State in 1980s, one captivating slogan that instantly caught the attention of most followers of the pulsating Nigerian politics was: History Shall Vindicate The Just. 

It was one of the fallouts of the horrendous and ill fated 1983 General Elections. The presidential candidate of the Nigeria People’s Party, NPP, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe had written a confidential letter which also came as a treatise to the then President Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria after he had been declared re – elected by the Federal Electoral Commission, FEDECO, with Justice Ovie Whiskey as national chairman, in 1983. 

 Zik, deploying his wealth of experience to action,  wrote to Shagari,  urging him not to accept FEDECO’s verdict on the elections as the results were flawed in its entirety, even as it had the capacity to cause serious public upheaval and rebellion from the larger society, if sustained. 

Contrarily, all of Shagari’s aides would not allow that as they took on Zik, calling him an expired politician as well as other unprintable names.  Zik replied them in the Daily Times newspaper referring to the aides as “nattering nabobs” and assured them that “History Shall Vindicate the Just”. Unsurprisingly,  within two months, a military coup led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari sacked Shagari and Zik was vindicated.

 So it is today in the Imo State PDP vis-a-vis the National Working Committee, NWC,  of the national party that allowed itself to be hoodwinked into believing the decimation of the noble leadership of the party in Imo State and to settle for a candidate that now has driven the party into an abyss. Horrendous mountains of lies were delivered to a compromised and equally unsuspecting national leadership of the party that believed that a fellow who just by happenstance had wriggled himself into the seat of the national secretary of the PDP must willy-nilly became the party’s strongman to win the November 11 2023 election in Imo state. 

One leader after another pointed out the folly in this assumption but the NWC would not give an ear. Interest and pressure groups within and outside the party were unable to persuade the national leadership of the party otherwise. The PDP probably driven by a failure drive refused to reason with these persons and groups.

Today, what we have is a PDP governorship election that is dead on arrival; a lily-livered candidate that’s about to abort his campaigns before it even started.

Permit me to present  this jaundiced 2011 governirship  election journey in a set of chronicles as I have observed it from afar, all because I am a concerned PDP member. After the 2023 General Elections, I was among those who, through published articles in conventional media and social media platforms, warned the NWC of our great party on the ills of allowing the national secretary of PDP, Senator Samuel Anyanwu,  who prefers the comedy codename, Samddady, from having his ways which I had forthrightly established to be orchestrated for his well oiled narrow selfishness. 

Employing records and facts, I abundantly made it clear that Samdaddy was on a sole mission to undermine and strangulate the PDP. I warned the national PDP that some of us have discovered a grandiose plot involving Senator Anyanwu and the Imo State Government led by Governor Hope Uzodimma on the illicit voyage of rendering our masterfully structured and beautifully organized party politically worthless, and effectively incapacitated. Demonstratively,  just as others before had done, particularly some of us resident in Imo, I  provided indubitable evidence, made available established leads as well as tendered proofs to back up my points as facts. 

Sadly, I was shocked to my red marrows that the NWC never took seriously to my concerns  and that of well meaning  members of PDP, either in Imo or outside the state.  Therefore, like Zik’s 1983 letter of “History Will Vindicate The Just”, my position and that of other visionary members of our great party on Samdaddy’s callous gymnastics and vaulting ambition, based on the current turn of events,  have been vindicated and proved right. 

My position was and had been that Senator Anyanwu who doubles as the national secretary of PDP and who manipulatively sauntered into being the candidate of the party for the November 11, 2023 governirship election in Imo, is a mole, working for APC. I stated it wholeheartedly that Anyanwu was clandestinely in surreptitious activities with Governor Uzodimma to ensure that Imo PDP did not present a strong candidate in 2023. I had it on a  good authority and I equally brought it to the public domain. 

The second phase is to facilitate the incumbent Imo governor complete his second term in office while Uzodimma would in turn thereafter assist Samddady to be elected governor in 2027. Graphically, elaborately and categorically, I painstakingly chronicled all these Judas Iscariot’s traits of Senator Anyanwu to the PDP NWC, yet they passed untreated, even unnoticed. 

Disgustingly today, and as it is usually the case, the chicken has come home to roost. The bubble as it were, has burst, just as the lid has been blown off and everything now laid to bare. First, reputable members of our dear party, ranging from former house of representatives members, to members of Imo PDP Elders Council, down to members of the State Working Committee, SWC, as well as other leaders and members at the grassroots, have left the party in their numbers and all point fingers at Samdaddy as the main reason for thier exit. They accused him of lack of sincerity in the pursuit of his governorship election, insisting he had compromised the chances of PDP by his unholy romance with Uzodimma. 

Second, almost like a tragic scene in James Hadley Chase’s all time best seller, Electric Shock, eyewitness accounts have copiously given sordid details on how the entire episodes  played out. They are quite revealing and at the   same time mind-blowing.  

Third, is the setting and the plot. And we recall both the member who represented Aboh Mbaise/ Ngor Okpala federal constituency in the 9th House, Rt Hon Bede Ekeh and the erstwhile state secretary of Imo PDP, Nze Ray Emeana, who at various occasions, has been testifying how the dirty political mercantile deal between Samddady and Uzodimma was signed and sealed. 

After their grilling and grueling revelations, Samdaddy gave them a two week ultimatum to withdraw the exposure and apologize to him or face legal actions. The deadline given by Samdaddy has elapsed and there have been even more agonizing revelations from the former Imo PDP SWC concerning how Samdaddy and his allies made away with the Alhaji Atiku Abubakar Campaign Rally Fund. 

When Bede and Ray testified against Samddady and his Divine Mandate group, the latter  climbed the rooftops to shout blue murder. The Divine Mandate Movement through a press conference, gave Ray a two week ultimatum to withdraw his allegation and render unreserved apology to it. Ray never apologized. And the date of the  ultimatum has also elapsed, yet no action so far taken by Divine Mandate Movement (DMM) against Ray. 

What rather took place was a show of shame and a scene of ridicule seeing what supposed to be PDP leaders being dragged to the Imo State Police Command on account of what ordinarily ought to be an internal party matter. 

The question is this? Since the Divine Mandate Movement demanded an apology from Ray, and as fate would have it, both parties met one – on – one at the invitation of the state security agency, what then prevented the DMM from affecting Ray’s arrest there and then? 

I am even very displeased with the way and manner the PDP national body usually jumps into the Imo State affairs without asking questions and clarifications from genuine quarters. It is very painful reading how the Imo State APC publicity secretary tore into shreds the comments and submissions of our national publicity secretary who treaded on an unfamiliar path. 

With all these crisis around Senator Anyanwu, it is apparently clear that he is not in any ready for the November 11, 2023 governirship election in Imo State. No serious candidate can honestly prepare for an election in this type of toxic situation. This is why I am challenging the NWC of PDP to urgently probe the allegations of Bede and Ray to actually find out the culpability or elsewhere of the PDP governirship candidate who has been accused of playing double standards with his nomination tickets.