By Favour Goodness
A coalition of youth groups in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reaffirmed their support for Mr Valentine Ozigbo, the party’s flag-bearer in the last governorship election.
They said that some unscrupulous politicians have started assuming false identities, to tarnish the name of the party’s candidate.
The group made this know through a statement it issued on Sunday in response to a publication by a nameless and faceless group.
The statement, signed by Dr Justin Kingland and Engr. Kissinger Okoye, the coalition’s conveners, condemned the culture of politicians using unknown persons to cast unjustifiable and unfounded aspersions at some nationally celebrated party leaders.
“We, a coalition of youth groups of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra State comprising over 8,000 registered active members, consider the statement purportedly issued by a fictitious group led by a faceless Chief P. U. Offorkansi wherein the leaders of our party were attacked,” they stated.
the statement read.
“We wish to state that as a group of young PDP members, who organised campaign activities and programmes for our party and our candidate, Mr Ozigbo, a globally celebrated business mogul and philanthropist, we find it rather strange that the said Chief P. U. Offorkansi is unknown to us.
“Offorkansi claims to be representing ‘stakeholders’ of our party, just a few weeks after an election in which he played no identifiable role or can show any evidence of contributing to the success of the party in the said election.
“We strongly believe that the faceless Chief P. U. Offorkansi needs to unmask himself by proving to the reading public that he is a card-carrying member of our party and convince us that he is indeed a stakeholder by making public his polling unit result.
“It is clear that this journeyman’s attempt at relevance by launching an attack on our respected party leaders is sponsored by the very traitors who betrayed our candidate and party in the just concluded governorship election.
“We are, therefore, calling on the National Working Committee (NWC) of our great party led by Elder Yemi Akinwonmi, and all Nigerians to disregard the baseless speculations mentioned in the purported statement by this faceless Offorkansi.
“The said statement was written in bad faith, not supported by any facts, and based on baseless speculations and could have only been engineered by an enemy of the party,” the group added.
The group went on to extol the virtues of Mr Ozigbo, calling him “a shining light in the dark corridors of Anambra politics” and “a glowing inspiration to a new generation”.
“It is rather unfortunate that those who don’t mean well for our party would decide to manufacture a non-existent crisis in our party by casting aspersions on the person of our flag-bearer,” Kingland and Okoye declared.
“We wish to put it on record that Mr Valentine Ozigbo is the best thing that has happened to Anambra PDP in the last four years.
“Ozigbo is the new lease of life that PDP badly needed in our state, and we will not stand by and watch the people who have contributed to destroying our party’s chances at winning the governorship drag him into the mud.
“As youths who worked hard in mobilising the voters for our party and who campaigned directly with Valentine Ozigbo in canvassing for votes in the November 6 election, we can say that Ozigbo made substantial personal sacrifices – financially, materially, and otherwise – to see that our Ka Anambra Chawapu dream came to reality.
“Ozigbo conducted himself with dignity, honour, and respect while deploying the best use of media and technology in political engineering.
“A multiple-award-winning global CEO, Ozigbo ran the best campaign we have seen in our lifetimes, and he deserves to be commended and encouraged to lead the way in recreating a New Anambra PDP chapter that would be back to winning crucial elections.
“His inspirational personality, integrity, and humility are why many of us, the youth, were inspired into active politics and why we canvassed for him without expecting recognition and reward.
“For us, Valentine Ozigbo is the Most Valuable Player of the 2021 elections, not just for our party, but for the entire election and PDP must launch an investigation into the role that Offorkansi, if he exists, and his sponsors played in sabotaging our efforts at the poll,” they added.
