BY RALPH EJIMKONYE
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is holding its primary election to elect a candidate for Okigwe senate bye election in Imo State.
The exercise takes place at the PDP headquarters in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area.
Delegates- statutory and ad hoc- drawn from 64 electoral wards in the area will cast their votes for their preffered choice candidate.
The contest is between Emmanuel Okewulonu and Patrick Ndubueze.
24 hours to the Primary, one of the aspirants, Ndubueze raised an alarm, alleging that a “small cabal” in the present leadership of the party is bent on stopping his aspiration on false claims that he does not have the financial ability to prosecute the election.
Ndubueze was the PDP candidate for Okigwe senate seat for the 2019 election.
He told newsmen in Owerri Friday, that the Charles Ugwu led state executives has a clandestine plan to impose another candidate on the party in a bid to displace him.
He said “My expectation and the expectation of all well-meaning members of the PDP was that I should have been given the ticket to reclaim a mandate freely given to me by the good people of Okigwe zone.
“In 2018, amid idle talks by my detractors that I had been completely skinned by the 2014 primaries and therefore lacked the capacity to run, I won convincingly at the primaries and went ahead to win the main election against a senator who lost to me even in his ward. Unfortunately, the mandate was stolen on account of internal sabotage.
“Now that another opportunity has presented itself for me to reclaim my stolen mandate, why would the party decide to throw me out to impose a neophyte who is neither popular nor acceptable to members of the zone?
“It might interest you to know that of the six LGAs that make up Imo North senatorial district, only Okigwe and Onuimo LGAs are yet to produce a representative of the senate.