Imo Guber:  Stakeholders, Supporters Want Anyanwu, Achonu To Withdraw Case

Say “Re-alignment Is The Way To Go”

By Enyinnaya Ubochi, Owerri

Echoes of the November 11, 2023, Imo state gubernatorial election that the incumbent,  Senator Hope Uzodinma, won with a landslide are yet to die down.

In a sudden twist,  Governor Uzodinma’s main challengers in the contest- Senators Sam Anyanwu( People’s Democratic Party, PDP candidate) and Nathan Achonu( Labour Party candidate) have come under immense pressure from some of their supporters and key party stakeholders to accept defeat,  withdraw the case they instituted in the Election Petition Tribunal against the Governor’s victory and congratulate him.

Multiple party sources informed this magazine that a majority of Senator Anyanwu’s key supporters and some PDP partisans from Imo East Senatorial district also known as Owerri zone where he hails fear that their principal’s decision to challenge the outcome of the election in court would impact negatively on the zone’s chances of producing Governor Uzodinma’s successor in 2028 when the Governor’s second and final term in office will elapse given that the Governor himself has hinted his desire to have someone from zone succeed him.

According to a member of a pressure group within the Imo PDP, Imo East PDP Stakeholders Forum, “Politics is not a straightforward game;  it’s not a straightforward mathematical application such as two plus two which gives you four. Politics requires a lot of balancing acts,  deft moves and pragmatism to arrive at a desired result.

“Yes,  we supported Sam Daddy( as Senator Anyanwu is affectionately called by his admirers), voted for him and wanted him to win because he is one of our own but unfortunately he lost; and in all honesty, looking at the result of the governorship election zone by zone and LGA by LGA you will notice that Governor Uzodinma won a popular mandate, a landslide, fair and square victory. And added to this is that he is delivering; he is reinventing Imo State socio-economically and infrastructurally, so why do we still need to disruptingly dissipate energy and resources in litigation?”

“I think what Owerri zone and our leader( Sam Daddy) need to do now and which is very vital, is to go back to the drawing board, reposition, realign and prepare for 2028 given that the Governor has indicated that he would want to see Owerri zone produce his successor”, the party stalwart who didn’t want his name mentioned “because of Imo’s volatile political and security situation”, said

In the same vein, for Chief Patrick Elesiokwu,  a PDP chieftain from Oru-East local government area, Governor Uzodinma’s home local government, what the party needs now is not a time and resources wasting gubernatorial litigation but rebuilding and unity as the Imo PDP,  according to him,  is badly fractured.

His words: “Let the truth be told;  we went into the November election a divided house,  how did anyone expect victory under such circumstances? “Election victories are not hung on the shelves for you to go and easily plug,  it is a function of concerted efforts and unity of purpose and these are lacking in Imo PDP.

“My advice to our candidate whom I vigorously campaigned for, is to stand down his court case against the winner of that election,  Governor Uzodinma, and rather commit time and resources into rebuilding and uniting our party ahead 2028”.

Notedly,  Imo East Senatorial district is upbeat about producing the next governor of the state. Save for Rt. Hon Emeka Ihedioha’s seven-month stint as governor,  the zone has watched from the sidelines as Imo West( Orlu zone) and Imo North ( Okigwe zone) took turns to rule the state since the return of democracy in 1999.

Not a few PDP members from Owerri zone want Senator Anyanwu not only to withdraw his election petition “in order not to jeopardise our chances in 2028” but also to defect to the APC,  strike a deal with Governor Uzodinma and then get the governorship on a platter of gold in 2028; this is even as rumours are rife in the state that former governor Ihedioha whose governorship was truncated by the Supreme Court in January 2020 in favour of Governor Uzodinma only after seven months in office, is on the cusp of moving to the APC to return to office in 2028 on the party’s platform.

In the case of Senator Achonu,  his supporters want him to either return to the PDP from where he defected to the Labour Party or defect to the APC and then prepare for a return to the Senate in 2027.

Said a member of one of his support groups: “I believe that the judiciary will not upturn Governor Hope’s victory,  we, therefore want our leader to reassess and re-align his politics,  we don’t want him to continue to waste time and resources at the tribunal because nothing will come out of it.

“Since the Labour Party euphoria has evaporated and eviscerated,  we want Senator Achonu to either move back to the PDP or defect to the APC and prepare to return to the Senate in 2027 having previously represented Okigwe zone in the upper legislative chamber”