Crisis Rocks Imo PDP As State Working C’ttee Members Resign

The State Working Committee (SEC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State has announced resignation from their positions and party with immediate effect.

Safe for the state chairman, Engr Charles Ugwu; all the others announced their resignation over what they described as repeated assassination attempts sponsored by the gubernatorial candidate of the party, Senator Samuel Anyanwu.

Addressing newsmen at the party secretariat yesterday morning with the premises surrounded by security operatives, the former officials alleged they had survived several assassinations attempts and could no longer mortgage their safety.

The officials were Sir Martins Ejiogu (state deputy chairman), Hon Ray Emeana (state secretary), Comrade Greg Nwadike (state youth leader), Collins Opurozor (state publicity secretary), Chief Maria Mbakwe (state woman leader), Barr. Josiah Eze (state treasurer), and Barr. Chibuisi Obido (state vice chairman, Orlu Zone).

The immediate past publicity secretary, Collins Opurozor who read the text said since the emergence of Senator Anyanwu as the national secretary of the party, “he has never relented in deploying the powers of his office to fight members of this working committee and intimidate even ordinary members of the party. Endless strife, mindless wars and erosion of all democratic values and principles have now defined and defiled Imo PDP.”

Opurozor said Anyanwu, the national secretary who doubles as the Imo State gubernatorial candidate of the party, daily sponsored petitions against them, in a bid to destroy the party, saying “Day after day, Senator Anyanwu still sponsors his very few loyalists to cook up puerile petitions against us and flood the national secretariat of the party with such inanities. On the basis of those contrivances, he has continued to threaten to dissolve the party in Imo State, even after we have defeated him at the Supreme Court.”

He said, “It is heartbreaking to inform you that some of us in the state working committee have severally escaped assassination attempts because of the wicked lies which our national secretary sold to his violent supporters, that we misappropriated party funds. Yet, it was he, Senator Anyanwu, that sent his aides from Abuja to steal the materials for last year’s congresses of the party, thereby creating a stalemate that gulped all our resources through multiple and controversial exercises and the appeasement of multiple stakeholders so as to save the party from not fielding candidates for the 2023 elections.”

Opurozor said the party had been damaged beyond redemption by Anyanwu, adding that the PDP was moving “irreversibly to its terminus.”

According to him, last Saturday, armed thugs sponsored by Anyanwu invaded the party secretariat and unleashed violence on them. “They vandalized our building, smashed all the glasses, beat our security men to a pulp, broke into our offices, and looted everything they could find. This latest attack was the most brazen and audacious attempt to eliminate us. It is curious that the so-called function which Senator Anyanwu claims to have brought him and his thugs to the party secretariat was totally unknown to us as SWC members,” he added.

Opurozor lamented that he and his colleagues were reputable people who had made their marks in their various areas of endeavour, and queried “how could Anyanwu destroy our reputation, and also destroy the party we have built, simply because of his fight for individual survival? The implication is that if by mistake he is allowed to govern Imo State, he will further destroy our dear state if only that would guarantee his individual survival.”

According to him, since the emergence of the erstwhile SWC in 2020, they had built a very strong, formidable and enviable PDP in Imo State, and had formed about 5,000 chapters across all the polling units in the state, and made the party endearing to the people.