‘Address The Defects In The Conduct Of PDP Governorship Primaries’– Stella Oduah (NAN)
The Oasis Reporters
September 11, 2017
The astute politician who masterminded the ‘Door2Door’ and ‘neighbor2neigbor’ campaign that saw to the election of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in 2011, Stella Oduah, a serving Senator, is miffed at the handling of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) primaries in her home State of Anambra, south east Nigeria.
Stella Oduah is also a former aviation minister and has recently thrown her hat into the ring to be the next governor of Anambra State.
It appears that things just didn’t go her way at the primary election and she said her party, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, was repeating the mistakes that led to it’s defeat in the 2015 elections.
She told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the party has started again to impose candidates for elections and she has formally complained to the leadership of the party, explaining that due process was not followed in the conduct of the primaries.
According to the princess of the Ogbaru Kingdom, those who took charge of the primaries at Awka the state capital, imposed a candidate and disenfranchised other candidates and delegates.
“I am still waiting for the party to address the concerns and the issues that I raised, which boil down to the fact that the party’s constitution clearly stated how primary elections ought to be conducted.’’
“Mine was very clear. I raised the alert when defects were noted.’’
Then she wrote to complain and to insist that she would not be a party to the breach and wants her complaints addressed.
“It will be illegal and unjust to follow it to the end, it is like knowing that a hole is somewhere then you are blindly walking into it.
“Anything unjust is totally unacceptable to me and that is where we are now, waiting for the party to address those concerns,” she said.
She has stated emphatically that penalty exists for disenfranchising party members and added that imposition and disenfranchisement were part of the problems of the party in the past.
She said if the party failed to address the concerns raised by her and some other contestants in the Anambra PDP primaries, then the party had not learnt from past mistakes.
“If the party fails to address these concerns it means the party has not learnt its lessons.
“I wish the party will revisit and address all concerns because when people are aggrieved and you are not concerned about those grievances, you are saying two things: “go to hell” and “there is nothing you can do about it”.
The PDP has had a chequered history in Anambra State. The first governor of the State since the beginning of the second Republic in 1999 was Dr. Chris Ngige of the PDP and it turned out that he was imposed by Mr. Uba, said to be a ‘godfather’. The exposure occurred owing to infighting in the party and the country’s Supreme Court moved in to remove him by restoring the mandate to the rightful winner, Mr. Peter Obi of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA whose eight year tenure was sterling, drawing world wide applause.
Mr. Obi left the APGA party to rejoin the PDP, while Dr. Ngige crossed over to the APC where he served a term as senator.
Almost all the frontliners in the November 17 gubernatorial election in Anambra State are former PDP members who are now flying the flag of diverse parties.
And the stakes are already high.
News Agency of Nigeria contributed as a source to this story.
