2019:Imo PDP Top Leaders Scramble To "Lead" Party

BY EZE EGEJURU

As the PDP rebuilds and reposition for 2019, top leaders of the party have formed a queue to lead the process of re- engineering the party in Imo State.

With Congress to elect new party executives fast approaching, feelers indicate that the party leadership is considering party bigwigs  to play the role of a father figure to keep the party together.

 Sources told INNONEWS.COM in Abuja that some key national leaders of the party have been told that one of the reasons why the party failed woefully in the last elections in Imo State was because there was no father figure who could manage the divergent interests of several governorship aspirants and other key stakeholders.

The party leadership is said to have accepted this proposal. Based on this, there is an ongoing lobby on who gets the father figure status in the party to manage the interests of ambitious stakeholders.

There were speculations that former Governor Achike Udenwa may be saddled with this responsibility.  Udenwa was the co- coordinator of the re- election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan in Imo State.

Many party stakeholders however accused him of failing to galvanize sufficient support for the then President In Imo State as the PDP like in other South East States were unable to generate the much needed millions to votes to counter APC’s then Presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari’s votes from the North.    

Some accuse him of not being a team player and lacks the political will to hold the party together after failing to handover to a core PDP governor in 2007. 

Some PDP chieftains in Imo State are also said to be pushing for Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu to be saddled with such responsibility. 

Iwuanyanwu has the backing of many political followers in the party in Imo State for this role, especially in Owerri Zone having successfully delivered his political godson, Samuel Anyanwu to clinch the Owerri senatorial seat.

He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the party, a national party leader and former presidential hopeful. A party chieftain "he perfectly suits this position" 

After the 2015 elections, which the PDP lost in Imo State, the Glass House office of Iwuanyanwu  in Owerri has to turned to a political mecca as party chieftains from almost all the local Governments have been flooding his office with several complains on how they were shortchanged by their leaders during the elections which cost the party its victory.

However, a top party chieftain in the State said he is unaware of such move, stressing that there is no basis for anyone to be appointed a father figure for the party in Imo State.

“There is nothing like father figure status in the party.  I have not heard of it before. What I know is that we have party leaders and that is what the party constitution recognizes. Anything outside that is alien to us.

“The PDP is re-branding in Imo State. We need to make more efforts to get the grassroots because the last election has proved to us that elections are no longer about big names but about people”

Efforts by this newspaper to speak to Nnamdi Anyaehie, the State Chairman on the issue was unsuccessful.

The party had last week lifted suspension and expulsion of party chieftains who defected to the All Progressive Congress, APC during the last elections.