Politics
2023: Plot to secretly appoint thousands of politcial aides in Abia exposed
The Coalition For Abia Unity (CAU) says it has uncovered a clandestine plot by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led administration in Abia State to appoint thousands of political aides secretly to enable them to deliver Abia South Senatorial Zone to their candidate and also use the same thousands for governorship elections.
A statement signed by the CAU Chairman, Chief Uzo Chukwu said the discovery was made after a painstaking investigation into the activities of the state government of late which has proven to be an obvious copycatting of some political strategies of their Rivers State counterpart who recently has said he would increase the appointment of Special Advisers, Special Assistants and Liaison Officers to a whopping 100,000 people.
He said; “Well, we are not from Rivers State and we wish him well after all they are not in the same predicament as Abia.
“In Rivers State, they pay salaries, they don’t owe doctors, they don’t owe teachers, their pensioners are not dying, their schools are not losing accreditation like ours, they have motorable roads and many other good things, so they can afford to play politics as they want.
“What is however unacceptable is for us is for “the rat to join the lizard to play under the rain” knowing fully well that while the water dries on the lizard’s body easily, it will never be the same for the rat because it will surely die of cold considering its hair.
“Let us remind Abians that some days ago, the Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu relieved all Senior Special Assistants/Special Assistants of their appointments. Let nobody get it twisted, he has the right to dismiss his appointees. After all, he appointed them.
“However, the undercover plot to appoint several thousand people with a similar portfolio to those dismissed and pay them with Abia money to win the election for the PDP is unacceptable.
“Our investigation revealed that following the obvious failure and arrogance that comes with it, the current Abia government has concluded plans to recruit hordes of aides albeit secretly in all the 17 local councils of the state, intending to use them to prosecute the forthcoming general elections.
“Let it be made clear that these secret political aides that will not be announced to the general public as we have discovered, are not really aides in its reality but polling henchmen who they have given the name “Third Force” because they will serve as a different organ to the party campaign team and the candidates’ campaign team.
“We want Abians to be alert and see why this government having realized that it has failed, comfortably accepted their failure in-house despite their public space denial but has decided to get power through the backyard by using money they hoarded, which could have improved the welfare of our suffering teachers and doctors to recruit aides to win elections.
“While our hospitals have only mortuaries functional, while our teachers are now hawking petty goods on the streets, while our doctors are now roadside sellers of all manner of things, the Abia government want to hire thousands of aides to pay them between N60,000-N80,000 as salaries to help them win election.
“Of course, we will not allow it which is why we’re exposing them earlier now. We’ll never allow the common patrimony of the people of Abia state to be used to maintain and sponsor some unproductive political hirelings to subvert the will of the people at the polls.
“We’re constrained to alert the good people of Abia on this evil plan to deploy the resources of the state for the achievement of the desperate ambitions of some political elements who already know that they have failed woefully and do not have any political relevance.
“Take note that we’re telling you now that these so-called Assistants, whose appointments may not be made public, will be drawn from all parts of the state’s LGA with the majority of them however coming from the Abia south senatorial district.
“Someone may ask why Abia South? The answer is simple; if the Governor loses his Senatorial ambition, the PDP will suffer massively in the governorship election and State Assembly elections so, all plans are geared towards delivering Abia South or burst!
“So, we want to alert Abians that the major assignment of these appointees, who we have equally learnt will form the nucleus, of what will be known as a “Third Force” will be to ensure the victory of the PDP senatorial candidate in Abia South.
“We’re also aware that their activities have been scheduled to be coordinated by one of the influential members of the current Abia State cabinet who will marshal the thousands of polling henchmen who must deliver or watch their political dynasty crumble and fall like the Tower of Babel
“We are also aware of a recent meeting in Aba where some top members of the current cabinet were instructed on the kind of people to recruit into the “Third Force” and were also given the orientation that the failure to achieve this senatorial ambition in Abia South will have a negative multiplier effect on the gubernatorial contest in the state.
“So, the good people of Abia State must realize that they’re desperate. They’re coming with Greek Gifts. They’ll appoint your brother, your sister, your cousin and your nephew to help them win the election.
“These appointees will play different roles. Some will come as blessings to your family (temporary). Some will tell you of promises made if victory is gotten. Some will come with evangelism while the last resort will be the lowest cadre of field agents for elections.
“Mind you, if we all this to happen, they’ve already secured thousands of votes with such appointments because they’ll never appoint anyone who cannot vote. It is an indirect and expensive system of vote buying which they’re willing to do to pay for their failure which is visible to the blind and audible to the deaf.
“Abians, shall continue to sell our votes hoping that God will send us a Messiah someday? How many of us will look at our teachers, our doctors, our schools and our suffering pensioners and say no to these Greek Gifts?
“For the people of Abia South, how many of you can boldly look at the Ariaria International Market, Ahia-Ohuru, Ohanku road, Obohia road, Port Harcourt road, Uratta road Omuma road Faulks road, Old Express road, Ozuomba road, Cemetery road, Amaukwu road, Azumini-Aba road, Obehie-Azumini road, Obehie-Owaza road and the laughable pipe dream and land grabbing project called Enyimba Economic City and say enough is enough?
“What could be more evil, wicked and inhuman than hoarding money meant for payment of salaries, pensions, infrastructural development and other necessities to win the election when good governance and sincere service to the people could have won the election in the first place?
“Let us make it very clear to all those plotting this acrimonious stratagem that copycatting Rivers State Governor’s political theories when you’re actually not working or putting in place dividends of democracy for your people as he has done for his people is tantamount to self-destruction.”
By Okey Maduforo Awka
The former member that represented Anambra East and West Federal Constituency Chief Chinedu Obidigwe has denied a social media handle where he was said to have made Prof Charles Soludo the Governor of Anambra state.
Obidigwe further stated that the report did neither emanate from him or from his Media Aides urging the party not to believe what he called attempt at setting a negative agenda in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Obidigwe who is an Aspirant of the party for the Anambra East and West Federal Constituency accused enemies of the party being sponsored by opposition parties to creat problems .
According to the Media Assistant to Obidigwe Mr Dominic Okagbue in a statement;
“The attention of Hon. Chinedu Benjamin Obidigwe has been drawn to misleading and unfounded claims/propaganda being circulated on various social media platforms through a pseudo account, alleging that Obidigwe said he installed the Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, as Governor in 2021”
“We wish to state, without any iota of equivocation, that such a statement never emanated from Hon. Chinedu Obidigwe. It is a desperate move by his political enemies who are bent on tarnishing his image as a tool and technique to advance their unmerited aspirations”
“Obidigwe, in 2021, was merely an electorate with just one vote. Even though he voted for the Governor and APGA, the question remains: can one man’s vote make a Governor?”
“Governor Soludo was elected and made Governor through the collective votes of Ndi Anambra, both in his first and second terms. We therefore call on the reading public to disregard such rumours and treat them as faceless and unfounded allegations geared towards the character assassination of an innocent man” he said.
A former Kano State Governor and leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, says northern political leaders conducted a deliberate assessment of potential allies before settling on Peter Obi as the most capable partner to prosecute the 2027 presidential campaign.
He dismissed concerns about a hidden power struggle between his camp and Obi’s.Politics
Kwankwaso made the disclosure in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, offering one of his most detailed accounts yet of how the North-Southeast political alliance within the NDC was formed.
“I looked around together with our leadership in the north to say, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together with us honestly so that we can move this country? Along the line, we realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it. That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
Kwankwaso, a two-term former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 2023, leads the Kwankwasiyya movement, a grassroots political force with deep loyalty across Kano and parts of northern Nigeria.Nigeria travel guide
He left the NNPP amid internal disputes before joining the NDC alongside Obi earlier this month.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, ran on the Labour Party platform in 2023 and drew massive youth-driven support across the South and urban centres, though he did not win.
Both men formally joined the NDC on Sunday, May 3, defecting from the crisis-hit African Democratic Congress.Politics
At the party’s national convention on Saturday in Abuja, Kwankwaso backed the NDC’s decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, describing it as a step toward fairness, healing and national cohesion.
Responding to a question about whether the alliance concealed a quiet rivalry between both camps, Kwankwaso argued that friction between principals and their deputies was a product of greed, not structural tension.
“The problem people are having, especially leaders, is that they are too greedy to the extent that they begin to have issues. There is so much to do. You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he said.
He said his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and later as governor of Kano State, showed that political partnerships could hold under pressure.
“I had an opportunity to work with my speaker and we worked very well. I was in Kano for eight years despite the difficulty of my then deputy governor. We were able to work for eight years amicably to the extent that I handed over to him,” he said.
Kwankwaso extended the argument beyond his personal experience, saying the same principle applied at the federal level.
In the Senate and other places, in the NDDC, we worked amicably with people. There is so much to be done and that’s why you have even ministers, other executives, advisors and so on. I don’t see from my experiences of the past why deputies or vice would fight with the president or governor,” he said.
He grounded the alliance in Nigerian political history, tracing a lineage of productive North-Southeast partnerships from the first republic to the present.Nigeria travel guide
“Right from the beginning, this sort of alliance has been in existence. Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did during their time,” he said.
He also referenced the collaboration between former Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and leaders of the NCNC, as well as that of former President Shehu Shagari and his vice president, Alex Ekwueme, in the second republic.
“So also in the second republic, immediately after the war, our leaders, Shagari and others, worked very closely with the southeast, with Alex Ekwueme as his vice president. They are our friends. We want to work together with them,” he said.Politics
Kwankwaso also noted that subsequent administrations had shifted power-sharing away from the South-East, a pattern he suggested the current alliance was correcting.
“There was a change during the third republic where for many obvious reasons an election was annulled and the government under the military decided to bring in Shonekan from the South-West.
Even after that, the military and other leaders worked together and brought in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West again. Even Bola Tinubu probably is a beneficiary of all that,” he said.
He was emphatic that the choice of Obi was not driven by regional sentiment alone.
“It wasn’t just because we are going to the South-West just because of the South-West. No. We realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it and that’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
The movement of both men into the NDC has triggered a wave of defections, with senators, House of Representatives members and political blocs aligned with their former coalition gravitating toward the new party, rapidly reshaping calculations ahead of the 2027 elections.
The alliance pairs Kwankwaso’s northern grassroots structure and disciplined voter mobilisation with Obi’s national youth engagement and urban electoral momentum, positioning the NDC as one of the main opposition platforms set to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2027
Former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has dismissed suggestions that his exit from the African Democratic Congress has created a damaging split in the opposition.
He said he and Atiku Abubakar may yet work together before the 2027 general election.
Kwankwaso spoke in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, responding to concerns that his move to the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside Peter Obi had effectively divided the opposition into two competing blocs ahead of the polls.
“Now, we may still work together before the election. I personally, and I think even Obi himself, decided to leave ADC not because we are fighting with Atiku or anybody there. We decided to leave that party because we realised that there are some issues,” he said
He said the ADC was contending with three major unresolved problems that he believed would make it difficult for the party to field candidates, without specifying what those issues were.
“Whether they will be able to field candidates in that party or not is just a matter of time. It’s not like we had a primary election,” he said
The remarks come after Atiku recently claimed on Arise TV that Kwankwaso’s popularity was confined to Kano State and further divided there by Governor Abba Yusuf.
Atiku, who is seeking the presidency on the ADC platform, also described himself as the most popular politician of northern extraction, saying none of his contemporaries, including Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Nasir El-Rufai, commanded a voter base across the North as wide as his.
Kwankwaso did not engage the slight directly, but made clear he bore no grudge.
“Politics is just like a game. I’m not fighting anybody and I’m not expecting anybody to fight me. I have no issue with that. I think we are past that level now,” he said.
He challenged those predicting a vote split in Kano to wait for the election result before drawing conclusions.
“Let’s wait for the election and see whether votes are split in Kano or not,” he said.
Kwankwaso also acknowledged a history of working with Atiku, recalling that he served as the former vice president’s northern coordinator during the 2019 presidential election.
“There was an election in 2019 in Port Harcourt. He won the election. I was his coordinator for the north. We worked for him,” he said.
He traced his broader relationship with Atiku to the 2015 APC presidential primary in Lagos, where he placed second behind Muhammadu Buhari, with Atiku third.
By Okey Maduforo, Awka
The Anambra State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expelled 30 members of the party for instituting legal actions against the party.
The affected members include some aspirants for the National Assembly, and their expulsion may disqualify them from participating in the party’s primary elections.
Disclosing this shortly after the meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the party, the State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Sir Valentine Iyiegbu, told reporters that the decision was in line with Section 21, Subsection 5 of the party’s constitution.
“The party discussed those who took the party to court, and many of them are contesting for the House of Representatives tickets of the party,” he said.
“The matter comes up tomorrow, and the SEC stated that what the party constitution stipulates would be followed, which is outright expulsion from the party under Article 21, Subsection 5.”
“The SEC actually ratified their expulsion because they did not exhaust all the internal avenues provided by the party to resolve their grievances,” he added.
Iyiegbu noted that the only reprieve available to the expelled members would be for them to withdraw their court cases.
“It is only when the matters are withdrawn from the court that the party can consider listening to them,” he said.
Speaking on the party’s primary elections, he explained:
“In the case of those contesting for the tickets of the Federal House of Representatives, all the eleven positions have aspirants, while for the Senate, the three positions are also being contested. The screening committees were here to perform their duties,” he noted.
The party also ratified the appointment of a five-man Primary Elections Committee headed by Sir Izuchukwu Okeke, the State Organising Secretary of the party.
By PETRUS OBI
Frontline aspirant for the Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency seat, Anayo Onwuegbu, has successfully completed the screening exercise conducted by the All Progressives Congress House of Representatives screening panel in Abuja ahead of the party primaries scheduled for Friday, May 15, 2026.
Speaking after the exercise, Onwuegbu expressed satisfaction with the screening process, describing it as a reflection of the party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and credible leadership selection ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The aspirant, who is seeking to represent Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency under the platform of the APC, stated that he remains focused and prepared to continue to offer quality representation to the people of the constituency.
According to him, “The process once again highlights our party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and the emergence of credible leadership as we prepare for the 2027 general elections.”
He reaffirmed his dedication to the development of the constituency, pledging to serve the people with commitment and purpose if elected.
The APC House of Representatives primaries are expected to hold nationwide on Friday as aspirants battle for the party’s tickets ahead of the 2027 elections.
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