Owerri Zone PDP Governorship Aspirants May Shun Consensus Candidate Arrangement

Indications are becoming clearer that plans to have a consensus candidate among the over 21 governorship aspirants from Owerri Zone jostling for the PDP governorship ticket in Imo State may be a mirage and forlorn hope.

This Blog gathered that while there is for now, no serious move from any quarters to adopt a single candidate from Owerri Zone to head to the guber primaries of the PDP, there are feelers that such a plan if conceived will crash like a pack of cards.

While most of the governorship aspirants in Owerri Zone have maintained sealed lips on the issue, most of their aides whom spoke to This Blog on condition of anonymity contend that since there is no such plan, it will be unnecessary to discuss it in the first place.

 Ominous signs that such an arrangement was in the offing played out when all the governorship aspirants from Owerri Zone met at the country home of Barr Hunphrey Anumudu where they agreed to oppose plans by the Imo State chapter of the PDP not to zone the party’s governorship ticket to any of the three geo political zones in the State.

However, one of the aides of a frontline PDP Guber candidate told This Blog that such idea paled into insignificance because  the meeting was a mere political gathering by those who share same aspiration to forge a common interest and does not in any way reflect the desire of any of the aspirants to adopt a consensus candidate.

“The initiative is most welcome but it will be an exercise in futility because all the governorship aspirants from Owerri Zone consider themselves worthy to fly the party’s flag in the 2015 governorship election.  So, who is going to step aside for Who” He said.

Political stakeholders in Owerri Zone have not minced words to argue that there is need for the aspirants from Owerri Zone to sit and agree on one of them as the forerunner of the quest of the Zone to produce the governorship flag-bearer of the PDP.

This agitation is not only being pronounced in Owerri Zone as some leaders in Orlu Zone especially those disposed to an Owerri Zone Governor of Imo extraction in 2015 are rooting for a consensus candidate arrangement   

This was said to have been echoed by former Imo State Governor, Achike Udenwa when political leaders from Owerri Zone visited him at his Amaifeke country home in Orlu.

Pundits argue that if the number of aspirants from Owerri Zone head to the PDP primaries, they stand the risk of losing if Okigwe and Orlu Zones field less number of aspirants.

As it is, Okigwe Zone has two prominent aspirants.  They are former Governor Ikedi Ohakim and Senator Ifeanyi Araraume.

 Orlu Zone will have a contender for the PDP guber flag if Senator Hope Uzodinma goes ahead with his much trumpeted but yet unconfirmed governorship ambition.

Owerri Zone is fiercely in the race to produce the next governor of Imo State in 2015 on the basis that since the advent of democracy in the State in 1999, it has not occupied the seat of power which Orlu and Okigwe Zones have occupied it twice and once respectively.