Moses Ofodeme
Crisis is strongly brewing in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Udenu Local Government Area chapter of Enugu State following an allegation that a top judge in the Nigerian judiciary is scheming to foist his loyalist on the people as the candidate of the party for the Enugu State House of Assembly in the 2023 general election. Udenu is the local government area of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
The aspirant is said to have boasted to his allies that he will use the influence of the unnamed Abuja-based top judge to get the governor’s endorsement.
According to a petition by the PDP stakeholders, a member of the Enugu State House of Assembly, representing Udenu LGA Constituency, Hon. Ikechukwu Ezugwu, who hails from Igugu/Udunedem community, has been in the House since 2011.
The aspirant, who hails from Obollo is also said to have confided in his allies that he will succeed Hon. Ezugwu in 2023. Obollo is made up of three old communities – Obollo Afor, Obollo Etiti and Obollo Eke.
But the political stakeholders in Udenu LGA under the aegis of ‘Some Concerned Members of the Gburugburu Movement,’ who wrote the petition, have vowed to oppose any attempt to impose the candidate on them.
Governor Ugwuanyi is popularly known in grassroots politics as Gburugburu.
In the petition to the governor, which a representative of the group released to journalists in Abuja, the governor’s loyalists also alleged that the aspirant only returned from the UK after the 2019 general election and have never worked for the PDP or any political party in any election in the country since 1999.
Gburugburu Movement also threatened to drag the judge and the aspirant to the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the PDP National Headquarters if further attempt is made to impose the aspirant on Udenu PDP. “If what he boasts about is true about his relationship with the judge, our humble opinion is that the learned jurist should use his influence in Nigeria to give him a federal appointment. He should not be used to shortchange those of us who suffered for PDP over the years,” the group added.
They described the aspirant as an outsider and stranger in the politics of Udenu LGA. The stakeholders lamented that many of them who worked for the party were told to exercise patience, “but the aspirant who was not in the country during the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 elections has held up to three political appointments in Enugu State Government in less than three years, through the judge’s influence.”
“We do not have a Federal High Court Judge or Appeal Court Judge or Supreme Court Judge as our godfather but we have worked hard for the victory of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Udenu LGA and Enugu State since 1999. Our brother can’t come back from the UK after the 2019 general election and reap where he did not sow because a judge is backing him. Within three years of his return to Nigeria, he has enjoyed three political appointments in the state government through His Excellency’s magnanimity. It is our considered opinion that with these appointments, His Excellency has demonstrated enough respect for the judge. The judge should look for other ways to compensate his boy for whatever job he claimed to be doing for him (judge).
He has boasted that his going to the Enugu State House of Assembly is a done deal. But we will resist him and whoever is behind him. If he has a judge in his pocket as he boasts, he doesn’t have Udenu PDP in his pocket. He is unknown to the PDP,” the petitioners wrote.
Gburugburu Movement also accused the aspirant of using his influence to stop the recognition of the traditional ruler chosen by his immediate community.
“We make bold to say that despite all appeals by the agents of the Enugu State Government and the Obollo General Assembly (OGA) for him to key into His Excellency’s peace disposition in Enugu State and allow the will of his people to prevail, he has continued to frustrate the elders and leaders of his community to cause chaos. We are not interested in how he uses his relationship with any judge to intimidate the helpless members of his community but our fear is that if he can use his current influence to cause crisis in his community, then he will create bigger crisis in Udenu LGA if he is allowed to go to the Enugu State House of Assembly and acquire wider influence and powers. We are not against Obollo producing the House of Assembly candidate but the candidate should not be a stranger to PDP – not a stranger who only identified with the PDP and the 20-year-old Gburugburu Movement for the first time just at the beginning of March 2022,” the petitioners explained