IN a bid to attend its zonal congress and national convention, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ebonyi State chapter, at an emergency State Executive Committee, (SEC) meeting yesterday endorsed candidates for specific offices zoned to the state. The positions include the Deputy National Secretary, National Ex-Officio, Zonal Youth Leader, Publicity Secretary and ex-officio at both National and zonal levels.At the end of the meeting, the state PDP Chairman, Prince Ugorji Ama-Oti, said that Mr. Onwe Solomon Onwe was chosen by SEC as the candidate from the state for the position of Deputy National Secretary. Ama-Oti added: 'We discovered that only the Deputy National Secretary was under contest because three persons bought their forms for the position. What we did was to inform SEC members on the development and sought SEC members to make their input by voting; papers were distributed to 69 SEC members including the Governor. Everybody voted and we had only one voided vote.'Though the Chairman did not say whether it was right for the choice of a national officer of the party to be restricted to the state, he denied insinuations that Governor Martin Elechi imposed candidates on the party.And in Anmabra, some party elders and founding fathers have urged every member to support and get committed to the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan.They premised the success of the programme on the full backing and drive by the party's hierarchy at all levels in the country for other citizens and the opposition party members to buy into the package.Meanwhile, there has been wide criticism against the weekend's caucus meeting in Enugu where certain persons were selected as consensus candidates for the national offices zoned to the South East. Those who emerged at the meeting include Mrs Kema Chikwe (Imo) as the National Women Leader; Chief Olisa Metuh (Anambra) National Publicity Secretary; Solomon Onwe (Ebonyi) the Deputy National Secretary; Col Austin Akobundu (Abia) as Zonal Vice Chairman-South East, etc.Mrs Carol Nwosu, a contender for the post of National Publicity Secretary vowed that the decision for any consensus candidate so produced from the meeting 'is unacceptable to us as no one was invited to the meeting. We are all bonafide and qualified members of the party, hence must be allowed an open and transparent contest at the national convention, or zonal congress,'Chief Okey Muo-Aroh, another aspirant from Anambra refuted the idea of consensus candidates. Other aspirants like Chief Chike Udenze and Ezeobi Okpala prefer the election of the National Publicity Secretary at the national convention.Their anger is against the emergence of Chief Olisa Metuh the outgoing National Vice Chairman, South East who is accused of enjoying the favour of the governors.Metu, who has been in the party's secretariat for long time, said he wants to use the platform of the national Publicity Secretary to reform PDP. He said his interest was borne out of personal love and zeal to unleash his wealth of experience on the image-making machinery of the party so that the citizens understands the party's and government's policies and projects better so as to appreciate them. Because he has been near the party's corridors of power for so long, he was accused of using it to manipulate the process. But he points out that his experience is beyond the reach of the other contestants .
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