PDP desperate to break APC ranks in Enugu – Party chairman, Ben Nwoye

The Enugu State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Monday accused the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state of orchestrating a campaign of calumny against its top members.

The chairman of APC in the state, Dr. Ben Nwoye made the allegation on Monday while briefing ‎journalists at the party’s secretariat in Enugu‎ on the party’s primary election for the November 4 Local Government election.

Nwoye said part of the PDP-led government’s gimmick was the appointment of relations of APC chieftains as either care taker committee chairmen or candidates of the PDP in the November 4, local government elections in the state.

According to him, such strategy, aimed at breaking its ranks would fail like a pack of cards as ‎the APC had gone ahead to prepare for the poll with the conduct of its primaries on Monday.

He stated that the party was following all the democratic tenets to ensure internal party democracy, as well as free and fair exercise, which he said would guarantee the party’s success at the polls.

He lambasted the PDP for engaging in a selection process in its choice of candidates for the election, stressing that such impunity was killing democracy in the State.

Nwoye used the opportunity to discountenance insinuations in some quarters that APC and the PDP-led government in the state were working together and that some APC chieftains were given the privilege of ‎nominating PDP candidates in the council poll.

He specifically denied that APC chieftains such as Ken Nnamani, Emperor Chris Baywood-Ibe and Sen Fide Okolo nominated ‘their boys’ as PDP candidates in Enugu South, Awgu and Nsukka local government areas, respectively.‎

He said that PDP was trying to be clever by half by nominating or appointing relations of APC chieftains as either local government care taker committee chairmen or PDP candidates for the incoming council poll, and turning around to spread the fake rumour that the APC chiefs
endorsed such candidates.

The APC Chairman also alleged that the PDP propagandists and media consultants had also gone to town with the rumour that because APC chieftains attended a farewell reception which the state Governor ‎Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi held for Nigeria’s Ambassador to India, Gen Chris Eze (rtd), who happens to be his kinsman, it then meant that APC had endorsed the PDP led government.

“The little gimmicks will not work. PDP is decimated, they are ‎finished in the state as a political party; they are using this local government election to pitch family against family, brothers against
brothers and friends against friends,” he said.

He boasted that APC will give PDP a run for its money in the council poll and will go ahead to chase the party out of power in Enugu State in 2019 general elections, to show that the antics of PDP would not work.‎

“Today is our local government primary election in all the 17 local government areas.
“It is done at the ward level. It is direct primary, we ‎are giving everybody, all the members of our party, the opportunity to come out and vote, unlike the PDP that had adopted a primitive style of selection and imposition of their members.

“But in midst of that, my attention has been drawn to a campaign of calumny by PDP-led government against the leaders of APC, against our ‎national vice chairman, Hon. Emma Eneukwu; against DG-VON, Osita Okechukwu; against former governor of old Anambra state Sen Jim Nwobodo; and the former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani; and even against three time senator, Senator Fide Okolo.

“And the point is, all these came about by the fact that Gov Ugwuanyi ‎agreed to perform one of his civic responsibilities of giving a farewell reception for an ambassador who happens to be his kinsman, from the same village as Gov Uguwuanyi.

“And he (Gen Eze) did the right thing as a person and invited leaders; ‎the same man Gen Eze invited our leaders to come to his reception.

“Being civil people, and being civil leaders, they attended that ‎reception. All that has now been turned around and we are getting suggestions from PDP media houses and media aides that somehow APC and PDP are now one, which is far from the truth. We are not one,” he said.

He advised PDP goons not to equate personal relationship with ‎political ideology, insisting that evaluation and assessment of PDP-led government would be done before 2019 by masses of Enugu State and not APC alone.

“And this campaign of calumny had been systematically sustained by PDP media house in Enugu State to the effect that they have hired writers and ambush men in media houses suggesting that APC leaders in Enugu state have passed some type of good verdict in PDP-led government in
Enugu state,” he said.