Sen. Ben Obi says Mr Valentine Ozigbo has remained the candidate of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on the Nov. 6 governorship election in Anambra state.
The former senator representing Anambra Central District and member of the PDP board of trustees in Awka on Sunday said that the party’s National Working Committee only recognised Mr Ozigbo as its candidate for the election.
“I don’t know about the second candidate emerging in PDP. For people who are used to trading with the party over the years, we’re not concerned about that.
“As far as we’re concerned, as leaders and members of the party, we had the primary that was conducted at the Women Development Center in Awka, and PDP’s candidate emerged in the person of Valentine Ozigbo.
“So, we’re not on the same page with people talking about conducting parallel primary.
“Now, our duty as BOT in the party is to initiate a process that can unite the party towards the coming election. For Ozigbo, he has the unique duty to bring his co-aspirants together and unite them; so that together, we can ensure that the party is not divided.
“We want a united PDP. We won’t encourage a political movement where people will carry court orders in their pockets all the time. We want PDP to return to power after almost 16 years of being out of the government house.
“There’s a provision in the PDP Constitution that when you take the party to court, you’ll be disciplined. It is because these characters are not disciplined that they continued in their antics. We’ll not encourage them this time around.
“As party leaders, we can’t take this any longer, Obi quarrel.
Also speaking on the development, the former Minister for Women Affairs, Mrs Josephine Anenih, has called on the party to sanction characters parading parallel candidates for the governorship election,” Obi said.
Describing them as sworn enemies of the party, Anenih insisted that these characters, whose stock in trade is to merchandize the party in every election season, were paid by desperate politicians to carry court orders in their pockets wherever they go, in order to ensure that the party do not go into elections as a united family.
Anenih, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the party, said, “For the past 16 years, PDP has been out of power in Anambra state.
“At every election circle, this same character will have a parallel congress. That is their stock in trade.
“As we’re talking about reconciling with people who are not happy at the party, there is no way these characters could be made happy, because, they’re spoilers. What they’re interested in doing is to merchandize the party and to make sure there’s no stability.
“I always wondered why PDP will not sanction these characters and ask them to allow the party to be, because, they’re definitely not patriotic and loyal to be a party.
“They’re just trading with PDP, and other political parties afraid of PDP are using them to destabilize the party. The worst is that these characters – these parallel congress people, who claim to be party members, don’t even support PDP during elections.
“They’ve been sworn enemies of the party since inception. Their duties were to trade with the party, but it will not work for them this time around. This time around, PDP is no longer going to join issues with them.
“We’re going to ignore them, discountenance whatever they’re doing, and remain focused as a party.
“For the party faithful in Anambra, especially the delegates, who felt they were disenfranchised during the primary, we’ve been reaching out to them, explaining to them what happened.
“It was in trying to make sure that the party is on the ballot paper come November 16 governorship election that PDP decided to have a primary using what we called super delegates. PDP is determined that nobody will prevent it from taking over the Anambra government house, come March 17, 2022.
“We’ll get there this time around.”
These spoilers; these sworn enemies of PDP, will not stop us. We’re going to break that jinx, and we’re getting to where we’re going,” she said.