Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s efforts to pick the Enugu APC guber ticket may have hit a brick wall with the hard posture of the State Chairman Barr Ugochukwu Agballa, but the Mpu born politician has not given up.
Our source informed that the Senator has moved up to Abuja to put pressure on the National leadership of the party.
Ekweremadu who withdrew from the PDP primary in Enugu is still considering his chances in APC and believes he can pull through from Abuja.
The one week extension of party primary is also working in his favour even as he is said to have opened up negotiations with other parties should the APC insist on not giving him the ticket.
Barr. Agballa also alluded to this latest move when he said on Sunday that “Ekweremadu has mobilized Senators to put pressure on our upright Chairman to subvert the electoral act.”
The Enugu party Chairman told newsmen on Sunday that Ekweremadu’s demand “is at variance with the spirit and letters of the electoral act. His demand is repugnant to natural justice. His demand is a confirmation that Nigerian politicians do not change their colours. They’re like the leopard. It’s ignoble, it’s evil and we shall resist it.
“Ekweremadu is in court claiming he was subverted as a delegate and that the subversion was in contravention of the electoral act.
“I am surprised that Ekweremadu who claims the glory of the electoral act as one of the framers is now running up and down, disturbing us here and there, asking to contravene the very electoral act he framed.
“Ekweremadu has mobilized Senators to put pressure on our upright Chairman to subvert the electoral act. But we have great confidence in our National Chairman, Secretary and national executive. These are men of principles and values.
“They cannot in anyway be induced to subvert the electoral act. Section 84 of the act is clear. Ekweremadu as of today is not a member of the APC. Nobody can give him a waiver to undo what we have done.
“We have had the primary which produced Senator-elect Uche Nnaji as our Governoship Candidate. Voted by all the delegates of the party, observed by INEC. I have certified true copies of our results from INEC. No Court in the Land can upturn that.
“So I am surprised that my party is under pressure. We want Ekweremadu to be a member of our party, but we can’t give him our guber ticket. Our guber ticket has already been given.
“Ekweremadu represents me in the Senate. He has done so for 20 years. He wants to be governor, but the position is not even zoned to our zone, Enugu West. But he wants to be governor, to take Enugu East’s turn.
“And it’s not enough for him that his party, where he was leader for four years, refused to give him Governoship ticket. Now he wants to come to our party to subvert Chief Uchenna Nnaji who we duly elected, what kind of man is Ekweremadu?
“I ask you the press and people of Enugu to tell me, who is this Ekweremadu? By their fruits we shall know them.
“People like Ekweremadu are dangerous to Nigerian politcial evolution. By his acts, he shows a danger…. Ekweremadu is the 17th person who signed the resolution for Zoning, yet he is the one subverting the zoning system.
‘Only a man blinded by ambition will come to my party where I am chairman to demand for Governoship ticket. It’s very insulting. It’s very condescending. It’s very annoying; it’s aggravating, for a man who is not a member of our party and demanding as a right the Governoship ticket that someone has taken.
‘I will not allow desperadoes to come scatter what we are building up in Enugu State.
“What I am trying to tell Enugu people is that time had come when they should rally round people like Uche Nnaji, politicians like him who are here to help the people.
“Ekweremadu has been in power for over 24 years, he should try and support other people. It shouldn’t all be about him.
“I was once his leader in 1999, he supported me, he was my coordinator at certain stage in life. When he became leader we gave him support. It behoves him to also support others. It shouldn’t be about him. We are not operating a monarch.
“I’m really worried about those who are following him. Who should have gone to other parties to fulfill their democratic aspirations. They are still following him on a wild goose chase.
“Ekweremadu zu kwanu Ike,” he concluded in Igbo language.
