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New Page 14
The many battles of Abia PDP
Senior Staff Writer KALU OKWARA argues that the toughest challenge for
the PDP in Abia State is still to come despite the reinstatement of Uzodinma
Okpara as state chairman
THE
reinstatement of Chief Uzodinma Okpara as the Abia State chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) penultimate week, doubtedlessly rattled some chieftains
of the party.
Chief Uzodinma was suspended last June,
following a petition against him by some party members who accused him of
anti-party activities and gross indiscipline. When the National Working
Committee (NWC) received the petition, they instituted a disciplinary committee,
which tried and found Okpara guilty of those allegations. The committee,
therefore, recommended his removal as state chairman, a recommendation, which
the NWC adopted in its October meeting presided over by the national deputy
chairman, Alhaji Iro Ibrahim Safana. Then Chief Audu Ogbeh, PDP’s national
chairman was out of the country on official assignment.
His purported removal paved the way for
his deputy, Chief Alfredo Awah, to assume the leadership of the party in the
state. However, from the outset, the group loyal to Governor Orji Uzor Kalu,
maintained that the NWC ruling would not stand, having perceived the action as a
plot of the opposition group to undermine their stronghold of party structure in
the state.
They, therefore, appealed against the
removal of Chief Okpara. After the suspension of Okpara as state chairman of the
PDP, Chief Alfredo Awah, his deputy, convened PDP stakeholders meeting on August
13. It was at the meeting that he was ratified as an acting state chairman.
Expectedly, neither Governor Kalu nor
those in his camp attended the meeting. Prominent party members at the meeting
included, the national secretary of the PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor; chairman
of the Niger Delta Commission (NDDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, Senate President,
Chief Adolphus Wabara; former Abia State deputy governor, Dr. Enyinnaya Abaribe;
former PDP state chairman, Chief Tony Ukasanya; and Nigeria’s Ambassador to
Italy, Chief Willy Wabara.
The stakeholders meeting was dubbed an
illegal meeting by the Orji Kalu, camp, which was reported to have lodged a
formal complaint to the NWC of the national ruling party with a view of
sanctioning those who participated in it, especially the Senate President.
This camp went further to alleged that
Chief Awah and his cohorts forcefully broke into the party secretariat on that
fateful day of the meeting without observing the due process of convening such a
meeting.
But Chief Wabara countered back by
insisting that the meeting was legally convened, as the PDP constitution
provided that the deputy chairman would act in the absence of the chairman or
when a substantive one had been elected in the case of the removal of the
occupier of the post.
While insisting that the meeting held
under a peaceful atmosphere as monitored by the state police commissioner, Mr.
Gaya, Chief Wabara accused Kalu of perpetrating an illegality by calling a
meeting of his loyalists under the banner of Reality Organisation, a group he is
alleged to co-chair with his mother.
According to Chief Wabara’s press
secretary, Mr. Henry Ugbolue, the meeting called by the Abia State Governor as
stakeholders meeting "is a nullity," dismissing its outcome as the "jaundiced
views of the governor, his mother and their Reality Organisation. He also added
that "the national leadership of PDP is continuing with efforts to free Abia PDP
from the firm clutches and disruptive tendencies of Governor Kalu and his
mother."
While these counter accusations were
going, the NWC penultimate week at its meeting in Abuja, upheld the removed
chairman’s appeal and restored him to his chairmanship position. The meeting was
presided over by Chief Ogbeh.
Members of the opposing camp were not
bemused, especially happening at a day the chairman of the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NNDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, was celebrating his
birthday.
Irked by this action, the Senate President
wrote to Chief Ogbeh, telling him that the reversal would not stand. The
implication is that their group, known in Abia politics as the as "Abuja group"
still recognises Chief Awah as the state chairman. No sooner had he fired the
first shot than the Abia Youth Congress (AYC) followed suit. The congress
described the reinstatement of Chief Uzodinma Okpara as a coup masterminded by
Chief Ogbeh in concert with Governor Kalu. The congress in rejecting the
reinstatement of Chief Okpara, insisted that his removal was irreversible.
They accused him of anti-party activities,
gross indiscipline and insubordination, stressing that the appeal he filed
before the NWC was unnecessary just as the members of the appeal disciplinary
committee that heard it exceeded their mandate by quashing his removal and
recommending his reinstatement.
To them, Chief Ogbeh’s action was
tantamount to resurrecting a buried and forgotten issue. They said Ogbeh shot
himself on the foot, "throwing caution and procedure to the wind, whilst
purporting to have reversed a decision taken in his absence... in furtherance of
the perfidious Audu Ogbeh/Orji Kalu tack-team 2007 presidential ambition, which
he is aware the authentic and majority of Abia PDP stakeholders are opposed to.
Rejecting Chief Okpara’s come back, the
congress threatened to resist Chief Ogbeh’s imposition on them with "every drop
of our blood". The congress said it was opposed to the idea of Chief Ogbeh
attempting to railroad them into accepting a debased and indicted leadership of
Abia State PDP, stressing that "while Abians are crying out loud over the 70 per
cent monthly deductions from the federal allocations to the 17 councils in Abia
by the Orji Kalu-led government, Ogbeh directly encourages it, because part of
this filthy lucre is deployed to lobby compromised party chieftains."
With these scenario, political pundits
argue that the die is cast, a replay of the type of politics that enveloped Abia
State in 2002 when a great gulf existed between Governor Kalu and the Abia
politicians operating from Abuja.
Then the governor literally picked on all
those politicians with the PDP fold that opposed his style and ambition,
starting from President Olusegun Obasanjo to the least member. Remarkably, the
conflict is emerging again ahead of the 2005 state congress and national
convention of the party when the elected delegates’ votes will determine who
will steer the party’s affairs at both the national and state levels. Closely
related to this is the fact that those state and national officers will
invariably influence the decision of who secures any elective ticket at those
levels.
A close aide to Governor Kalu told
Sunday Champion when Okpara was suspended that they would do everything to
ensure that the suspension was quashed. He argued that if Okpara was not allowed
to serve out his tenure, it would distort the zoning arrangement the "kitchen
cabinet" of Governor Kalu was tinkering.
Political analysts argue that with the
public declaration by Governor Kalu of his presidential ambition come 2007, his
victory in restoring Uzodinma to his post, is a clear signal that he will stop
at nothing to strengthen his tentacles already dominating the party structures
in the state.
With Wabara pitted against Chief Ogbeh and
Governor Kalu, analysts maintain that the PDP in Abia State like in many other
states may be in shambles in 2007. This is because, the Abia governor appears to
have relaunched his battle against President Obasanjo for obvious reasons.
Since the revocation of the licence of the
Slok Airline, a subsidiary of Slok Group, owned by Governor President Obasanjo
last week came out clearly to assert the revocation was not based on technical
inefficiencies as Nigerians were made to believe initially. According to Mr.
President, those governors floating airlines, radio stations, television
stations etc., were doing so at the expense of the public fund.
But governor Kalu has long challenged the
federal government to mention those governors that have defrauded their states.
Yet, in another breath, he said he was
ready to name all the politicians maintaining foreign accounts.
In the emerging war, analysts are asking
where would Chief Ogbulafor’s loyalty lie, knowing that he is still nursing a
gubernatorial ambition? Will he use Ogbeh’s good relationship with Governor Kalu
to reconcile fully with him and change camp, since his group will surely
determine who picks the gubernatorial ticket?
Political pundits assert that whichever
way the pendulum swings, the war has already begun. And those things at stake
include ambition, ego, power and selfish inclinations.
But will the audacious and outspoken govern win this
raging battle again or will it herald the demise of PDP in Abia State?
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