GOVERNOR Sullivan Chime of Enugu State at the weekend opened up on how he and his loyalists in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP are planning for a smooth transition at the end of the eight year Chime era. He debunked insinuations of imposition and expressed readiness of the party in the state to ensure that even those opposed to the choice of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi as the next governor would still have an opportunity to canvass their points in the party primaries. See excerpts from the interview below:...
MY transition plans
In line with our practice, we had as the family of PDP in Enugu State, commenced consultations to see if we can agree among ourselves on who should actually represent us at all levels, House of Assembly to Gubernatorial. We decided to take the bull by the horns, so we started with the most difficult or what should have been the difficult one, the governorship.In the 2011 elections, activities leading to that election, we had the understanding that within the party that I should be allowed to complete my second term and thereafter, it should go to the North that hasn’t produced governor before under the platform of the PDP.So, within the PDP, I got the nomination, I contested and of course during the general elections, one or two persons from Nsukka contested but they were abandoned by their people and they performed so miserably, so no reasonable person will hold that against them.Last year, the caucus of our party met, because they felt there was need to formalise that arrangement, we met and also re-affirmed that decision that the governorship should go up north. So in keeping with that decision, last week, we summoned a meeting of who is who from Nsukka zone, although we called it the caucus meeting, everybody was invited.Everybody was there, I believe the commissioner for information can make available the list of the attendees. All persons who had indicated interest one way or the other were there, all elected officials, government, public officers, both state and national were there, past and present leaders.
So, we met and unanimously, at the end of deliberations, it was put to a formal motion which was moved. A lot of the aspirants stepped down for Hon, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. At the end, it became clear the way the discussion was going. I was there as the umpire, I didn’t participate in the deliberations; mine was just to guide them, to coordinate what was happening.So everybody who wanted to speak was given the chance to speak. People who had expressed concern earlier, thinking that they were called to come and endorse a particular candidate, after hearing from their kinsmen, changed their views and withdrew from the race.
Hearing from kinsmen
Interestingly, at the end of the day, the two persons that moved and supported the motion were actually contestants were stepped down. Amb. Fidel Ayogu moved, and was seconded by former deputy governor, Okey Itanyi. And the motion was unanimously endorsed; everybody supported. When I asked if anybody was against the motion, not a single soul raised his hand, so they all endorsed it.
Before we started going into the details, I reminded them, everybody had tried to give reason why he should be governor, my response to all of them at the time was that in the end that it is our people that will decide. That whoever, we agree upon, that it would be my duty to champion the person’s course; that I wasn’t going to nominate any person. So at the end of that meeting, it now became my burden to ensure that we got support from the other zones.So we now called a meeting of Enugu East senatorial district on Wednesday, everybody was there but the ones that couldn’t come like Senator Ken Nnamani, Senator Jim Nwobodo and so on, I briefed them when we went for the National Honours award and they indicated their willingness to support the choice of the north.So they lent heir support and at the end of the meeting, only one nomination was available, Hon. Ugwuanyi and everybody again unanimously endorsed him. We followed up on it, Friday, the people of my district, Enugu West met, the same thing happened. They moved a motion and it was unanimously resolved that he will be our candidate. Today (Saturday), we firmed it up with the State Caucus meeting, all the zones endorsed him as a consensus candidate.
But I want to say something because I read things in the papers and became worried, even hearing of people threatening to go to court; nobody should fool himself. This is a case of people coming together to express their desire, we have not elected a governor or selected the PDP candidate, we are saying as a family, this is our number one choice. He will still go though the rigours of primaries, at the appropriate time, he will buy form, he will be subjected to primaries.If on the day of primaries, other people see reasons to queue in and give him support, we’ll probably have him as the only candidate and support him. It is not by force, nobody is being cowed, everybody is free to express himself but as a family, in Enugu, we try as much as possible to agree and I believe, we have reached that agreement and the very interesting thing is even the young man’s acceptability outside the family ring.
Interesting thing
People who know him and have had encounters with him say he is widely accepted. People are excited about his choice, so I thank God that such a character came up and I didn’t have to beg anybody, plead with anybody or start selling a very bad product.
I have a good product to sell and that makes it a lot easier. We will probably take up at the SEC meeting of the party, down to the local government and ward levels. Ugwuanyi is our choice, there is no doubt about it.Every other person, whether you are of PDP, you can contest with him for primaries or a member of any other party, you wait for the general elections.We are looking forward to that, and it is our prayer that, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, we’ll be producing a governor who will be returned unopposed. It is not by our might, it is not by any funny dealing with anybody.
We did that during the last council elections, all our 17 chairmen were returned unopposed.
Implicit trust
It had never happened anywhere in Nigeria, but it happened in Enugu and we look forward to having it happen this time around in the governorship.
It depends on actually the way you run the party, get people together to have implicit trust in what we are doing. What we preach here is peace, togetherness, selflessness, always think of the people. We have endorsed him as the consensus candidate. It is also enshrined in the constitution of the party.
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