The crisis rocking the Imo chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has worsened after members of the influential Ajaelu political family in Ihitte Uboma LGA formally dumped the opposition party.
Reasons for their sudden exit were unclear, but this newspaper observed that constitutional breaches, intimidation and internal repression under the current leadership may have forced the exit of the Ajaelu brothers.
Insider accounts obtained by INNONEWS revealed that Chief Chuks Ajaelu, the PDP State Vice Chairman for Okigwe Zone and one-time factional state chairman of the party, resigned alongside his younger brother, Chimaobi Ajaelu, a former youth leader of the party in Ihitte Uboma Local Government Area, as well as the family’s political patriarch and apex leader in the area, Chief B. Kizzito Ajaelu.
Top-level sources familiar with the development disclosed that the trio had already communicated their exit to relevant party organs, including the PDP ward leadership in Amakohia, Ihitte Uboma LGA, in what insiders described as a carefully coordinated political withdrawal capable of triggering fresh defections within Okigwe Zone of the party.
Chief Chuks Ajaelu, this newspaper gathered, formally stepped down as PDP State Vice Chairman for Okigwe Zone and terminated his membership of the party with immediate effect.
Another source said he communicated his resignation via a letter, dated May 29, 2026, and addressed to the Imo State Chairman of the PDP and copied to the State Working Committee, the Southeast Zonal leadership and the National Working Committee in Abuja.
Ajaelu was alleged to have accused the current state leadership of abandoning the provisions of the PDP Constitution while allegedly institutionalising “intimidation and blackmail” within the party hierarchy. He is said to have stated that after more than two decades of service to the party, he could no longer continue under what he described as the prevailing atmosphere in the party.
“The decision was not taken lightly,” a close source to Ajaelu told this newspaper.
“After serving the party diligently in different capacities over two decades and the people of Okigwe Zone, I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer continue under the present circumstances and state leadership, where the provisions of the PDP Constitution 2017 as amended are routinely disregarded, intimidation and blackmail are now the order of the day,” Ajaelu was quoted to have written in his resignation letter.
The development is expected to send shockwaves through the Imo PDP structure, particularly in Okigwe Zone, especially Ihitte Uboma, where the Ajaelus are widely regarded as one of the most formidable grassroots political families.
Over the years, the family built a strong network of loyalists across several communities, maintaining considerable influence in party mobilisation and reconciliation efforts.
Chief Chuks Ajaelu had remained one of the few longstanding party figures who stayed with the PDP since its formation in 1999, despite repeated internal crises and waves of defections that have battered the party in the state over the years.
Before his resignation, Ajaelu had served in multiple strategic positions within the party. Apart from emerging at one point as factional state chairman of the PDP in Imo, he also contested for the substantive chairmanship position of the party but lost to Charles Ugwu, a former Minister of Commerce and Industry.
Efforts to obtain direct comments from Chief Chuks Ajaelu were unsuccessful as of press time. However, a source close to the former PDP chieftain disclosed that he would soon address journalists and make public his next political move amid growing speculation over possible alignments ahead of the unfolding political realignments in Imo State.
