2023: No Automatic Ticket for Contestants, Says Ebonyi PDP

Benjamin Nworie in Abakaliki

Ebonyi State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed that the party would follow all due process and democratic tenets in the selection of its candidates for the 2023 general elections in the state.

The State Caretaker Chairman of the Party, Elder Fred Udeogu, who stated this during the local government congress of the party in Abakaliki, noted that there would not be an automatic ticket for anyone.

He added that the party is still open for new members, assuring that the party would accommodate everyone’s interest and political aspirations.

“God has been on our side since we came on board. There is no sincere politician that will say, I am closing doors for people coming in, no. As far as the business of politics is concerned, you are always at the point of expansion and the elasticity is always there. You continue to expand for people to be coming in”.

“We will follow all due process and democratic tenets in the selection of our candidates unless the people unanimously choose any candidate. So, what you heard may not be true because we cannot stop people from coming into our party but we still going ahead because there are people who are founding members of our party and those are people that have refused to leave.

So, we have not foreclosed avenue for people to come in and we will not do”.

“We are always willing to expand, like I said, people who were in APC, declared for PDP and we gave them the latitude to participate in the entire process(congresses). If you are qualified to win any election, we will accommodate you and we did that and it was perfectly done and we are happy about it. Ebonyi is PDP and nobody can change it.”

“Then, when you talk of APC, we don’t know who is APC and who is not APC because Ebonyi is PDP. People who thought it was better to go the other way saw different thing there and all of them came back. And we gave directive to our people at their different wards that they should accommodate them. we didn’t do what APC did when they were registering, nobody was registering when they were registering , people were not willing to register with them,” Udeogu said.

The chairman also noted that the local government congress would be a hitch free exercise except in Izzi local government where stakeholders could not agree.