* It’s Brazen Falsehood From Bad Loser—Deputy Speaker
The senator representing Owerri Senatorial District in the Senate and governorship aspirant in Imo State, Senator Chris Anyanwu has petitioned the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, against what she called “brazenly criminal twist” introduced by the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha to the party congress, calling for the cancellation of the figures allocated to Enyiogugu ward.
In her petition titled “Petition against the criminality introduced by Hon. Emeka Ihedioha in Imo PDP congress”,Anyanwu alleged that the deputy speaker moved people around 6.30 pm on Saturday from Mbutu, Uvuru, Umuhu, Nguru and other wards in Aboh Mbaise LGA to her own ward in Enyiogugu also in Aboh Mbaise and directed them to queue up to be videoed to the consternation of the natives
She added that this happened after the party members from the wards “had left after waiting in the sun to vote from 7am to 6.30.pm. the few natives left got angry and began shouting and shouting that Emeka should leave Enyiogogu for Enyiogugu people.
“Eventually, he left after videoing the crowd he came with and also left with them along with the 35 vehicles including three truckloads of policemen and two motorcycle outriders”, the petition reads in part.
The governorship hopeful said the party congress should not be done by putting the rural people “under the gun”, adding that a high officer of government landing in a village with three truckloads of police and numerous state security officers and over thugs from other places could not be the right atmosphere to enable people vote their preference.
She stated that Ihedioha leaving his ward and coming into high stakeholder’s village with armed men and foreign crowd and personally ordering that they queue up, was the highest form of provocation and criminality.
“Bringing in over two hundred cult members and thugs from other parts of the LGA and state and using them to elect his choice delegates without the authorized official is not only brigandage but criminality. This is completely contrary to the PDP guideline which stipulates that only registered members in a ward can vote in that ward. There is no room for flexibility on the matter. You cannot ship members from Ward A to vote in Ward B”.
Senator Anyanwu described the action as a very costly mistake for the deputy speaker, who aimed to go for the general election.
She requested that any figures of the result written and submitted for her ward, Enyiogugu, be cancelled, adding that the deputy speaker be officially reprimanded for introducing “this criminal twist to the PDP congress which if allowed to spread, will make good congress impossible in the party”.
In his reaction, the deputy speaker said Senator Chris Anyanwu’s allegation was only aimed at smearing his reputation, as according top him, there was no iota of truth whatsoever in “this unfortunate and brazen falsehood”.
In a statement signed on his behalf by the Director-General, Emeka Ihedioha Governorship Campaign Organisation, Chief Chris Okewulonu, Ihedioha said rather than admitting that her loyalists lost woefully at the polls, the senator was directing her anger at himself, whose concern, like every other leader, was only to ensure that the exercise was peaceful and hitch free in accordance with the guidelines of the party.
The statement reads in part, “It is also imperative to emphasize that due to the size and capacity of the LGA party headquarters, the stakeholders and leadership of the party including Senator Chris Anyanwu agreed to use the Central School, Enyiogugu field as the distribution/collation centre for the exercise.
“In compliance with this above decision, all the stakeholders and leaders of the party in Aboh Mbaise LGA assembled from their various wards to observe the distribution of materials.
“The Deputy Speaker had no hand, nor control in the management of the Adhoc Delegate Election in Enyiogugu as it was primarily and entirely the affairs of the Enyiogugu people and those sent to supervise and conduct the election by party officials.
“It is therefore shocking that Senator Chris Anyanwu should vent her anger on the woeful performance of her preferred candidates for the polls on the Deputy Speaker who was merely there to observe the distribution like other leaders.
“The allegation by Senator Anyanwu on the use of SSS, police, thugs and cult members is a figment of her own imagination as it has embarrassed the entire PDP in Enyiogugu ward and Aboh Mbaise in general”.
Ihedioha therefore advised Anyanwu to concentrate on winning the governorship primaries in accordance with the party guidelines rather than looking for scapegoats.
