Ahead of the 2019 general election, a wave of defection is seriously blowing in the Enugu State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
This is as most of the political heavy weights in the State have dumped the the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The roll call of the defectors include former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, former Governor of old Anambra State, Chief Jim Nwobodo, former Speaker, Enugu State House of Assemby, Hon. Eugene Odo, and a host of others.
The development has now created a serious uncertainty over the future of the PDP in the State.
Speaking on the development, the state chairman of APC, Dr. Ben Nwoye said the PDP was now dead and buried.
The party declared that it had dismantled all the rigging machines of the PDP in the state, vowing that nothing would stop it from wrestling power from the party during the next election.
Nwoye, who briefed newsmen Saturday at the end of the party’s stakeholders’ meeting with officials of its National committee on the ongoing members’ re-registration exercise, noted that with the influx of political bigwigs from the PDP to the APC in the three senatorial districts of the state, “it is now obvious and clear that it is all over for the PDP.”
“It is now obvious and clear that nothing will stop the APC from taking over Enugu from the PDP in 2019”, Nwoye boasted.
According to him, all the notable politicians and grassroot mobilizers that made PDP strong in the state, such as Senator Jim Nwobodo, and ex-Senate President, Ken Nnamani, from Enugu East district had all left the party for APC.
“Same has happened in Enugu-West and North senatorial zones, where the likes of veteran politician, Gbazuagu Nweke Gbazuagu, fondly called (GNG), immediate past Speaker of Enugu state House of Assembly, Eugene Odoh, former member, federal House of Representatives, Uchenna Ekwe, wife of ex- governor and former National chairman of the PDP, Mrs Dorothy Nwodo, amongst others have pitched tent with the ruling APC”, he added.
Dr. Nwoye, who was joined in the media briefing by chairman of the national committee on the re-registration, Rev. John Ibeabuchi, and other principal officers of the party in the state, reiterated his earlier position that the exercise which began on Saturday, 21st, January 2017, was open to all progressives and true democrats in the state.
He disclosed that the erstwhile senate president, Chief Ken Nnamani, will be officially registered into the party, today, Sunday 22nd, January, at his Amechi political ward in Enugu south council Area of the state.
The Enugu APC state Chairman, therefore, enjoined the people of the state and the South-East in general, to use the opportunity offered by the re-registration exercise to embrace the party for the political interest and betterment of the Igbo race.
Earlier, Rev. Ibeabuchi, in his remarks, had explained that the re-registration exercise, expected to last for one week, was aimed at enabling the APC ascertain the capacity of its membership, just as he corroborated Dr. Nwoye’s stand that the exercise was open to all and sundry.
Highlight was the formal defection of dozens of PDP members from Enugu South local government area of the state, who were handed over to the state chairman, by the Enugu East zonal chairman, Barr. Val Ikpa.
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