FIVE POLITICAL PARTIES IN ABIA STATE ENDORSE CHIKWE UDENSI OF APGA FOR GOVERNOR

BY UGOCHUKWU EKE

Five political parties in Abia state have come together to endorse the governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Sir Chikwe Udensi as their sole candidate for the forthcoming governorship election in the state.

The parties are Peoples Party of Nigeria, Accord, New Generation Party, Democratic Alliance and New Progressive Movement and were led by Umah Ogbonnaya of Accord saying that he (Udensi) is most qualified to lead the state among other aspirants.

Ogbonnaya who addressed newsmen in Umuahia said that after due consultations that they have decided to come together despite their different political ideologies to endorse Udensi for governor next year.

He said that with the elections coming near they have taken a look at all the political parties both old and new and came to the conclusion that all they aspirants who are eying the governorship seat that Udensi is the best.

The Abia Accord chairman said that the total number of parties endorsing Udensi are ten in number and that they have all agreed to adopt Udensi as the aspirant that will take the state to the next level.

Ogbonnaya explained that the state needs a credible candidate that can lead the state out of the woods, stressing that many things have gone wrong in the state such as none payment of workers salaries including pensioners.

He said that the worst mistake the current administration made was to divide the civil service into two in what they called core civil servants and none core civil servants, adding that they (government) are the only ones that understand what they meant.

The leader of the endorsing parties said that many things have gone wrong in the state since its creation, “Many states around our state have gone way ahead of us while we are still very far behind, things need to change to for us to move forward”.

He recalled that before 2015 general elections that Udensi who was in another party was known to have helped another governorship candidate financially to have his gubernatorial campaign take off.

Ogbonnaya said, “This is a man that is well known for his philanthropy even as he was in another party, he helped another governorship candidate who was contesting against him financially which is rare gesture, such a man deserves to be governor”.

He used the forum to fault the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registering more parties when they do not have any focus on what they (parties) are doing or how the electorates will vote during elections.

The Abia Accord chairman said, “What I expect INEC to do is to create more polling units so as to make voting easier for people while casting their votes, few number of polling units make voters to have problems during voting in any election”.

Ogbonnaya also condemned the sealing of the National Assembly by the DSS in an attempt to impeach the senate president, saying that the law is clear on how the National Assembly leader could be impeached.

He said, “The law says that two thirds of the members of the senate or House of Representatives of the entire members sitting and not two thirds of those present during any sitting, they just want to destroy your democracy”