IMO STATE POLITICS

IMO PDP 2020 CONGRESSES: NO ZONE WAS MARGINALIZED

By Ogu Bundu Nwadike, M.A

As a matter of personal principle, I don't discuss or analyze matters in court. Am a respectful, respectable, responsible, law-abiding and peace-loving. Those that know me will readily attest to that statement of fact and truth.

However, that a matter is subjudice won't debar me from setting the records straight whenever the records are distorted and misarranged. That's more so when there's evidence of misinterpretation and misinformation.

For instance, Rt. Hon. Jerry Alagbaoso, member representing Orlu/Orsu/Oru East Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives has been reported as declaring that he actually sued Imo PDP over the successful completion of the Party's 2020 Congresses. That's too absurd!

However, Asiwaju's ebullience in coming out clear from the dark alleys to the public to make his declaration should ordinarily be commended.

But the commendation he should earn may have been withheld on reading his reasons for going to court, against the stipulations of the Party's Constitution, as amended.

He was widely reported to have stated that he sued Imo PDP, inter alia, because "Orlu Zone was marginalized"! That'll amount to the wrongest assessment of Imo PDP 2020 Congresses.

It was a wrong assertion by Hon. Alagbaoso and other person at that to aver that Orlu Zone PDP was marginalized in the 2020 Congresses. How? Where? When? Why?

As far as the 2020 Congresses were concerned, no Zone of PDP, that's talking about Orlu, Owerri, and Okigwe zones could rightly say that it was marginalized. Never!

The processes were transparent. The procedures were free and fair, at least to the extent that it complied with the directives and instructions of the National Working Committee (NWC), which sent party officials from the National Headquarters in Abuja to come Imo State to oversee and supervise the conduct of the Congresses.

Of course, there may have been aggrieved people who the Congresses may not have favoured their permutations. There'll always be aggrieved people after each Congress, Conventions or primary elections. Yet, even from such people, there were no complaints. There were no petitions.

The lawsuit that Hon. Alagbaoso has publicly claimed to sponsor could be for any other reasons yet to be heard by the Court, but certainly not because Orlu Zone PDP was marginalized. No way!

Orlu Zone leaders and members participated fully in the 2020 Congresses at all levels. Party officers at all levels emerged at the end of Congresses. 

Obviously, Hon. Alagbaoso may not have consulted appropriately and exhaustively in Orlu Zone PDP and with leaders and stakeholders of the party in the zone before storming the Court.

If he had so done, they would have patiently reminded him of the age-long "Equal Basket Allocations" agreement of the party on such issues as the distribution of party offices via the Party's Congresses. That agreement was duly and religiously complied with in the 2020 Congresses.

Let me conclude on a point of direction. The best thing Asiwaju should do is to do the first thing he ought to have done before considering litigation.

Imo PDP is a political homestead to all party leaders and members. It's a political parent to all stakeholders of the party. Who really sues his parents? Who wins and who loses at the end?

He should liaise with leaders and stakeholders of Orlu Zone PDP. He should consult with them. He should hear from them. He should listen to them. He would then be convinced that no zone was marginalized in the 2020 Imo PDP Congresses.

Then, Hon. Jerry Alagbaoso should consider whether or not to continue pursuing the rather embarrassing lawsuit that he owned up to have sponsored. 

Thereafter, he should let sleeping dog lie, and continue to play his part as a respectable and respected leader of the party. Imo PDP needs him just as he needs Imo PDP!

Ndigbo say that: Nobody normally destroys the house he laboured and invested enough resources to build. A dog doesn't eat the bone hung on its neck. To whom much is given, much is expected!

As Prof. Nnamdi Obiaraeri would advertize "a new normal is possible"! Imo PDP is making good progress. There's no cause for alarm!

By God's grace, Imo State must be rebuilt!