As the countdown to 2015 election begins in Imo State with various parties making preparations for the primaries to select candidates, PDP in the state is sitting on a keg of gun powder waiting to explode.
This is coming even as the party leadership has allayed fears that there would be possible implosion in PDP ahead the conduct of the primaries.
Trumpeta reliably gathered that what will however spark off another anticipated implosion in the party with the umbrella signpost is the issue of delegates expected to produce the eventual candidates.
According to recent guidelines released by the PDP from its headquarters in Abuja, there will be two categories of delegates, made up of statutory and ad hoc. While statutory have laid down procedures and identified, ad hoc will be sourced from the ward levels through a special mechanism of conducting elections at the grassroots level.
However, the process of getting the delegates is said to be causing ripples in the party with some affected aspirants showing uneasy calm and disaffection.
Barely few weeks to the conduct of the primaries, the party in the sate is yet to officially come up with the official guide lines to get the ad hoc delegates which shall be three per ward in the 365 recognised INEC wards in the state.
The inability to point out the modalities has created mutual suspicion with some aspirants expressing fear that the exercise may be bungled. In the absence of the stipulated guidelines, names of Persons from wards is alleged to have been forwarded to Abuja by some prospective aspirants. The development is raising eyebrows within the rank and file of the party raising consciousnesses that there could be a grand design by some elements within the party in the state with their cohorts in Abuja to hijack the exercise for the purpose of filtering the primaries to their favour.
Trumpeta learnt that most of the aspirants who are in the move to all localities as part of their consultations are involved in the delegate lists’ racketeering that is ravaging the party. The newspaper was reliably informed that contrary to the stipulated guidelines that card-carrying party members at the ward level would gather at the ward congress to select the 3-man delegate during the ward Congress, there would be only a mere formality to adopt shortlisted names as ad hoc delegates. The formality is to respond and authenticate the list already drawn and sent to Abuja for recognition by some interest groups in the state.
It was learnt that the process of selecting the delegates will not differ from past exercises of the PDP where similar approaches have been adopted in the past to select LGA delegates to national Congress of the party.
A top source in the party who called for anonymity disclosed that the same processes adopted to get national delegates and representatives of the party will be replicated.
But the approach will be another self destructive tendency on the part of the party as discordant tunes already engulfing the party from aggrieved members who may loose out from the planned method of selecting delegates.
The aggrieved group in the party are said to be warming up for inevitable skirmishes should there be subtle measures to eliminate them from the scheme of things. Imo PDP case is said to be worsened with the absence of an arrowhead as state party leader unlike in the past where the state Governor who is a PDP member dictate the pace of party activities. More disturbing to the state PDP is the call for re-integration of returnee members who joined the party recently.
It would be recalled that the former Governor, Chief Udenwa, ex Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, incumbent senator of Owerri zone Christy Anyanwu and the likes of Mike Ahamba (SAN) who had sojourned in other parties rejoined PDP in a grand rally attended by president Goodluck Jonathan. Their return has further bloated PDP members with the returnees seeking proper accommodation in the party through re-integration processes. The absence of defined or clear cut modalities to select delegates may lead to internal wrangling.
Meanwhile, our Abuja correspondent reports that the national office of the party is battling to contain the plethora of lists of delegates names sent to it from politicians aspiring for exalted positions.
