IPOB: Fears Over Updated Timetable For PDP Governorship Primaries In The South-East

By Charles Igbo

There are fears that the just released updated timetable by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as it concerns the South-east States, might not work. It is likely to be disrupted and marred.

The PDP in the reversed timetable had fixed the Governorship Primary for May 23. But that date is a Monday, and in the South-east, it is a day marked for the ill-advised and much condemned sit-at-home order, a baby of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB.

The Primaries will hold in three States out of the five States in the Zone. The States are Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi States. That of Imo will hold a couple of months later, while that of Anambra will hold in 2026.

The sit-at-home order – a total lockdown of the South-east- was introduced by IPOB to pressurise the Federal Government to release its Leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who is in the custody of the Federal Government, and is being prosecuted for alleged sundry charges, including terrorism and treasonable felony. But the order only succeeded in bringing untold agony, pain, loss and anguish to the Zone as it claimed several innocent lives, destroyed people’s businesses and the economy of the Zone. The Federal Government turned a blind eye, and played deaf to the order. It was like, “it is their people they are punishing and killing, let them go ahead ”

Based on that understanding, IPOB  first reduced the sit-at-home order from every Monday to only the days Kanu would appear in Court, to finally suspending it entirely.

But the order is still being enforced every Monday, not by Kanu’s IPOB, but by Simon Ekpa who identifies himself as a “Disciple of Nnamdi Kanu”, but who IPOB has recently disclaimed and called a criminal.

In a statement, IPOB said he, and his group called “Autopilot”, are responsible for the continued violence and enforcement of the sit-at-home order in the South-east.

Ekpa has, so far, not denied or confirmed IPOB’s allegation, but has continued  to issue orders for the lockdown of the Zone, and threaten consequences if not obeyed.

Recently, gunmen attacked and disrupted an INEC centre in Imo where people had gone for the issuance of their voters’ cards. The gunmen who threatened there will be no elections in the South-east, killed one INEC official, and kidnapped two. The fate of the two kidnapped INEC staff remain unknown.

Not a few people think the PDP should reschedule the Governorship Primaries in the South-east to another date – not on a Monday – to avoid its disruption and to give the people the chance to pick their own candidate.