Imo PDP in Disarray over sale of forms for Local Government Election
…Samdaddy’s men accused of luring aspirants for massive cash out and extortion
By Nkwo Calistus
All is not well in Imo State as every indications emerged yesterday that there may have been a big crack in the Imo State chapter of Peoples Democratic party (PDP) with the level of internal grumbling, apparty and lack of interest given the manner of arrangement made over the sale of party forms for the up coming Imo local government election.
Majority of PDP faithfuls are angry and may protest soon, while some aspirants have openly lamented, confronted and accused the State Chairman, Mr Dike of deliberately scaring aspirants with his pertain, hidden agenda of deciding on the amount and mode of payment for sale of the forms with varying degrees of inconsistency, lies and conditions attached to all payments.
According to reports, It it no longer news as it has became obvious that the party could be heading towards a fresh crisis and extinction when majority of party faithfuls are already in confusion and accusing the state Chairman of planning to defraud aspirants with connivance of the National Secretary Sen Samdaddy Anyanwu whom they have accused of bringing arrangements that is shrouded in secrecy and lack of transparency and accountability with the sole objective to extort money from aspirants.
Dike has also been accused of not following to the party’s constitution, this many believed is giving legitimacy to many unethical “419” practices, which would appear to be influencing the sale of the form as at the time of this report.
The specific demands of entitlements by the SWC members openly to aspirants are no more speculations but reality. This is very unhealthy and should be corrected if the party is ready for the election some members insinuated.
Many are accusing Igwe of sliding the party towards a one-man-show alleged that decisions taken at SWC meetings are not implemented and even if they are implemented, they are done with mundane modifications.
Many aspirants who decided to speak to news men stated that the Imo PDP was shoddy in handling preparations for the party’s local government election, alleging that critical committees that should have handled the arrangements, including the screening committee were not constituted.
Hitting hard at Dike, many of those who spoke in anonymous said the chairman should show leadership by example and not to be a stooge in handling the party and relating with party stakeholders and not working to please those in Abuja whose plans and desire is to defraud aspirants their hard earn money using the sale of forms as a tool.
“Under your leadership, the current SWC is gradually snowballing into similar circumstances whereby decisions taken are allowed to lay bare and, in some instances, changed without necessarily taking needed steps to carry members along.
“No doubt, given all the challenges inherited and coming at a time when it’s extremely difficult to control events and almost everything would appear to have been set against the party and its leadership, we need to take every measure to avoid past pitfalls.
One leader said “The danger of this kind of development is that it will soon become the accepted practice without any commitment to meeting provisions of the law with respect to electoral guidelines. The other challenge is how as SWC we seem to be handling very critical responsibilities of managing affairs of the party very casually and recklessly and setting bad precedence.”
