Politics
The storm gathers in Abia as Ikpeazu ‘annoints’ successor
BY MARK MBAH JNR.
HEAVY crisis that may lead to the collapse of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia state is building up over allegations that the state Governor, Dr. Okezie lkpeazu has anointed a 66-year-old former Vice Chancellor of the Abia state University, Prof. Uche Ikonne as his successor come 2023.
Reliable information had it that Ikpeazu and some of his kinsmen from Ngwa land and part of ukwa extraction met last Sunday night and after their meeting decided to go and convince the retired academia to come and step into his shoes as his successor next year.
Uche Ikonne hails from Isialangwa North Local Government Area of the Central Senatorial Zone of the state. He has been a former Rector of the Abia State Polytechnic Aba as well as the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the Abia state University, Uturu all in Abia state.
Although there has not been any official statement from either the state Governor, who is said to be out of the country on official engagement or the state PDP chairman, Rt. Hon. Dr. Asiforo Okere to confirm the plot but impeccable sources affirm the story with the published report showing that lkonne has already picked his Governorship nomination and expression forms from the National Headquarters of the party in Abuja.
Prior to this time, there has been heated arguments among political leaders of the three senatorial zones of the state of which zone to start after the Governorship seat must have gone round by the expiration of the incumbent who is from Obingwa in Abia South Senatorial Zone.
Ikpeazu’s immediate prediccessor, Chief Theodore Orji has maintained that the Governorship seat restarts from Abia North Senatorial zone while some other politicians insist it must rotate between the two blocs of Old Aba and Old Bende that make up the state.
The ruling PDP in the state had last week issued a statement that the Governorship seat has been zoned to both Abia central and Abia North Senatorial zones of the state. This sounded ambiguous and alien as many politicians described the unspecific party’s announcement as unusual in the history of PDP zoning formula.
Some lambasted Ikpeazu and his co- travellers in their choice of a man who has not in any way indicated interest in the gubernatorial race neither has he any blueprint yet in his supposed ambition.
Many are of the opinion that should Ikpeazu decide to zero his choice to Abia central senatorial zone of the state that there are more vibrant and tested younger aspirants within the zone with proven integrity and genuine accomplishments. Many politicians of pedigree and repute are openly rooting for younger aspirants like Chief Elvis Ncheta Omerekpe, Enyinnaya Nwafor among others who have verifiable proofs on ground speaking for them for years now across the state and have for long already developed positive blueprints on how to develop the state.
For Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe representing Abia South Senatorial Zone of the state and one of the Governorship aspirants who has already picked his forms, ” the whole arrangements are efforts in futility to foist an unknown individual on the people “
Speaking on a popular radio program within the state last week, Abaribe queried where decisions of zoning and choice of candidate were taken in the state without a high ranking member of the party like him present.
He argued that as a high ranking member of the party who has remained steadfast with the party since it’s formation and today the Senate Minority leader that had participated in all the party’s decisions in the state that it’s absurd of the recent developments and that the entire arrangements are dead on arrival and can never fly.
Abaribe said he was not desperate for the position but has only presented himself to serve because he has confidence to change the narratives and improve the lives and infrastructural development of the people and the state and want the right thing to be done by allowing the party members to choose their candidates.
He stated it categorically that it would be impossible for people like him to be in the party and allow anymore wrong foundations laid in the party.
For former SenatePresident, Senator Adolphus Wabara, his views are that if it must remain in the old Aba bloc, it must be an ukwa-man because ukwa and Ngwa make up the old Aba bloc otherwise the Governorship seat should move to Abia North Senatorial Zone.
His opinion is that hence Ngwa Man in the person of Okezie lkpeazu has taken a slot from the old Aba bloc, should the seat be retained in Aba bloc it must be ukwa person because Ngwa and ukwa made up the old Aba bloc.
But political analysts in the state are of collective opinion that the bloc or senatorial zone is insignificant in this dispensation but the capacity and calibre of a Governor whose impact when elected will be phenomenal in tackling the multifaceted yearning needs of Abia people.
They posited that the idea of selecting or anointed candidate has been retrogressive in the political development of the state and would prefer a candidate who can be independent without being a stooge.
Barr. Onyeso Okeke, a stalwart of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while addressing party loyalists recently at a function in Aba called on delegates of the party to resist any attempt to foist a candidate on them.
He said ” l have been a strong PDP member since 1999, our state, Abia has suffered backwardness via this anointed candidates. How can you imagine someone who is not prepared for an examination and suddenly you draft him into the classroom to seat for an exam. The person will certainly perform abysmally and you won’t blame him because you drafted him in”
” For me the Governor should play a role in determining his successor but it must be a collective decision with other principal and critical stakeholders. What happened this week at Isialangwa North where a former Deputy Governor and an in-law of the Governor, Chief Acho Nwakanma with few of his Obingwa brothers and some handpicked individuals from Ukwawest area to call on Professor lkonne to succeed the incumbent is unacceptable and can’t fly at all. They want to destroy the party and make it lose the 2023 election.”
He said” Can you imagine such trash, where are the party leaders, where are the Ochendos, the Wabaras, Onyema Ugochukwu and other leaders across the state. The Governor should please drop this because the heat will be too much for him to bear and it would be very shameful and unfortunate if he fails to cordinate peacefully and effectively the entire leaders of the state to produce his successor. All those pushing Professor lkonne on him will destroy him politically. He should remember that it is his name that’s at stake not those political interlopers and harbingers. With lkonne, the party is doomed and we can’t allow that, never” he said.
Another legal practitioner from Isialangwa, Barr. Ubah Nkem Ajomiwe couldn’t hide his feeling as he bitterly dismissed Professor lkonne’s ambition.
He said, why should someone even mention the name of lkonne for such plum job. Have you not heard his story as a Rector in Abia state Polytechnic, Aba or are you not aware of how he left Abia state University ” ABSU”. Have you not heard of backlogs of unpaid salaries owed these two institutions till now. Was it not during his tenure that these two tertiary institutions were quagmired”
” l have heard the Governor talking about Umunneator, that’s, Isialangwa North, South and Osisioma all in Abia central senatorial which is one of the zones favoured to produce the Governor by the party. If he pitches his tent there then he should look for credible, acceptable aspirant with capacity, vision and goal and not a tired retired academic scholar with doubtful leadership competencies at his days in the higher institutions” he said.
He said “we have vibrant, dynamic and competent young men in persons like Chief Elvis Ncheta Omerekpe, Enyinnaya Nwafor who have demonstrated all round capacity and have touched lives who should be given the opportunity to go and salvage our people not De Uche Eleazer lkonne. I was in final year at ABSU when he became the Vice Chancellor and l know how impoverished he left the institution and he is my brother and sentiment apart, he’s not fit at all for the job. The past records are poor. “
He said ” the other day, l saw his pictures on social media with PDP nomination form and calibre of people around him. Another Abia Governor to tossed around , God forbid.
Those around Professor Ikonne now are jobless individuals who claim to be professional politicians with no other sources of livelihood and cannot survive without being around corridors of power.”
He said ,Did you not see the day Enyinnaya Nwafor went to party office at Umuahia to declare his interest. Did you not see that Umuahia was shutdown last Wednesday for Omerekpe. Can you imagine the unprecedented crowd from the entire state that accompanied Omerekpe to Umuahia. Did you not see Ginger Onwusibe and other credible leaders that accompanied him. My brother make independent inquiries, you will know he’s the people’s choice because his track records speak volume of his ability”
“I have not met Omerekpe physically in my life but my brother go to our area and entire Abia and see that his works speak for him. I watched his documentary on AIT recently and marvelled at what the young man has done for the people ” he said.
He counseled the Governor Dr. Victor Okezie to call his messengers doom back home warning that the consequences of wrong choice will be an end to PDP reign in the state. Let there be open field for the aspirants to test their popularity and acceptability.
ENDS
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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