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• Enugu PDP calls for senator-elect’s arrest
From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
Former Governor of old Anambra state, Sen. Jim Nwobodo, has charged politicians in Enugu State to embrace peace and avoid actions that could derail the state, warning that the 2023 elections should not be used to create hostility.
Nwobodo, who was reacting to a viral video on the social media where the senator-elect of Enugu North Senatorial District, Chief Okey Ezea, was calling on the people of his constituency to see the March 11 governorship and state assembly elections as a “do or die affair,” warned that such statements could incite people against one another.
This came just as the Campaign Council of the Enugu State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called for the arrest of Ezea over the alleged inflammatory statement.
Ezea was quoted to have said to a gathering at Nsukka that the “March 11 election is a straight fight between Nsukka and Nkanu, to know who is bigger than the other because Nkanu people want to turn us, the majority to minority. So, you must prepare very well. You must make sure the directive goes round…”
But addressing newsmen in his Amechi country home yesterday, Nwobodo stressed that politicians in the state should learn from the peaceful disposition of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, whom, according to him, “has not abused anybody since he lost his election to the senate.
“This tendency to drum up war should be cancelled. It is God that gives power. I want to inform you of the looming danger. I watched a video where he said the governorship election will be a do or die. I was shocked that somebody, who has just been elected to represent his people at the National Assembly, could make such an inciting statement. He was inciting the good people of Nsukka against the people of Nkanu, literally drumming up war on the day of the next election.
“First, I want to plead with the peace-loving people of Nkanu not to react violently to the unprovoked statement. The people of Nsukka are our brothers and sisters and not our enemies. As a governor of Old Anambra state, I had a very good relationship with Nsukka, and they were my great supporters.”
Nwobodo explained that the PDP candidate, Peter Mbah, was seeking to be governor of Enugu State for the three senatorial zones of the state, stressing that the power he seeks is not a sectional one.
“I strongly believe that statement from Ideke does not represent the view of the good people of Nsukka that I know,” he said.
The former governor condemned, in strong terms, the killing of the Labour Party senatorial candidate for Enugu East, Oyibo Chukwu, last week, in Enugu, insisting that no amount of politics and power worth taking the life of any individual, just as any politician who takes life is not worthy to occupy public office.
He said: “That is why as governor of Old Anambra state, I never signed a single death warrant. That is because I abhor killing and taking human lives. It is condemnable and anyone found to have engaged in that should be brought to book and made to face severe punishment.”
Meanwhile, in a statement by its Director of Communications and Spokesman, Nana Ogbodo, the Enugu State PDP Campaign Council maintained that the Ezea’s statement was a breach of the accord for peaceful election signed by all the political parties and candidates.
The party called on security agencies
