By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
A benevolent spirit may have cracked Emeka Ihedioha’s palm kernel for him as far as next year’s Imo state governorship election is concerned. It has emerged that the immediate past Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship candidate for the election is the major beneficiary of the rumpus in the All Progressives Congress, APC and All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. Imo state chapters of both parties are mired in debilitating internal crisis arising from disputed governorship primaries. Credible sources close to the Imo PDP hinted that Ihedioha has been receiving overtures from several APC and APGA chieftains dismayed by the turn of event in their parties. They are said to have pledged to work for the former House of Reps.Deputy Speaker to ensure his victory at the polls.
Multiple sources close to the crisis ridden APC and APGA told The source that a high wired gang up against Uche Nwosu, Governor Rocha’s Okorocha’s inlaw whose name a faction of the APC led by the governor has been forwarded to the national secretariat of the party as its Imo state guber candidate, and Ararume who dramatically berthed in APGA after losing out to Okorocha in the battle for the control of Imo APC, is in the offing. An APC source said: “Many in Imo APC will rather work for the party’s down fall than allow Okorocha obtain unmerited third term in office by proxy. Nwosu is Okorocha’s alter-ego and we won’t allow Imo to be used to experiment oligarchy. If the national leadership of our party decides to turn deaf ears to the cries and complains of Imo people by insisting on Okorocha’s son-in-law, we will turn our backs on the APC and back Ihedioha instead, he is a lesser evil”
The anger in Imo APGA boiled over early this week when some officers in the state chapter of the party openly accused the National Chairman, Victor Oye of selling the party’s ticket to the highest bidder. Before the controversial emergence of Ararume as the guber flag bearer, some party chieftains in the state had complained that Imo APGA was about to be sold to the highest bidder but had vowed to resist the move. They had told the Magazine: “APGA in Imo is about to be sold to people who will in turn sell our dear party to the APC. APGA national leaders have compromised; they have handed our party to outsiders but we will resist it”
Two weeks ago, Ararume donated #10 million to the Imo state chapter of APGA for the printing of more membership cards and another #12.6million said to be for sundry expenses for the party’s primary elections leaving observers to query the real motive behind the donations by an aspirant competing for the party’s gubernatorial ticket with others aspirants in a primary election.
While the national leadership of APGA has imposed Ararume , as the governorship candidate of the party, the APC is parading two candidates, each emerging from parallel governorship primaries. An APC guber primary conducted last Tuesday by Ahmed Gulak, a onetime Political Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, produced Senator Hope Uzodinma as winner. However, no sooner had the result of the exercise been announced than Okorocha’s faction cried blue murder leading to another primary four days later which threw up Nwosu as candidate. Uzodinma, a veteran of election related court cases in which he always come out victorious, has since taken the APC national leadership to court. He is asking the court to compel APC to forward his name, and not that of Nwosu, to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as the authentic Imo guber flag bearer of the party.
