Secondus: PDP Has Developed Strategies to Win in 2019

• Party’s NWC presents road map to victory to governors in Asaba

By Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has said the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party is in the process of fine-tuning its programme of activities that will form the roadmap to victory in the 2019 general election.

Secondus, who stated this yesterday in Asaba at the start of the party’s NWC meeting held in Delta State, said the onus was on the PDP leadership and members from national to the local government and ward levels to salvage the country from the grip of the rudderless All Progressives Congress (APC) come 2019.

He noted that the party’s NWC was only waiting to conclude consultations with the PDP governors and PDP to members in the National Assembly on the said roadmap to victory before unveiling the grand design and strategy by the PDP wrest power from the APC.

Secondus, who simply dismissed the much-talked-about political movement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the grounds that the group would have no time to forge an effective national party before the general election in 2019, urged Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta to work hard at annexing neighbouring Edo State and restore the PDP to power in the state.

He stressed that the party would carry out an effective mobilisation of all party members at all levels as a practical step towards taking power at the centre, stressing that the weapon to rescue Nigeria depended mainly on the possession of the permanent voter’s cards (PVCs), which he said was more powerful that the arms of security men and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The PDP national chairman said: “The weakest point in the history of the PDP is that we lost in the 2015 elections but we should take advantage of the monumental failure of the APC. They came with a government of vengeance, we must emphasise that our people must have voter’s cards because Nigerians want us to come together and rescue the country in 2019.”

Also speaking, the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, said he was confident that the PDP in Rivers and Delta remained unshaken and set for any electoral battle, but stressed that the fight against corruption should be directed at weeding out the country’s number-one corruption, which he said was “the stealing of the people’s mandate during election.

Host governor, Okowa, who reeled out a litany of successes recorded by his administration in the last two-and-half years, noted that the strength of the PDP in Delta State remained its faith in hard work as was demonstrated in the January 6, 2018 local government election in where the party won all the 25 council chairmanship seats and all but one of the 470 councillorship seats.

The meeting was heralded by a reception organised for members of the PDP NWC and other stakeholders by the Kingsley Esiso-led state working committee and attended by several PDP governors as well as national, state and local government stakeholders held at the Unity Hall of the Government House Asaba.

Ten PDP governors were expected to attend the meeting with the NWC of the party but four of them were at the reception, including the host, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, Chief Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State and Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe  State.

These were later joined by the governors of Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Taraba, Ekiti, Ebonyi and Enugu for the crucial meeting with the NWC and  the party’s national legislators last night.

Ohakim Vows to Demonstrate Naked over Unpaid Judges Wages in Imo

  To contest 2019 Imo guber poll

Amby Uneze in Owerri

Former Governor of Imo State, Mr. Ikedi Ohakim, has raised the alarm over the injustices meted on judges as the state government is owing them 16 months salary arrears.

He vowed to lead a demonstration to protest against the state government if at the end of March this year, their salaries are not paid in full.

Ohakim who served the state as governor from 2007 to 2011, has also decided to join the race for 2019 governorship following pressures from different quarters to run for the remaining four years to reposition the state from the underdevelopment caused by the present government.

The former governor who made the assertions yesterday during an evening with journalists, expressed disgust with the attitude of state government in handling the affairs of judges working in the state by denying them of their salaries for 16 months which has led to the death of some of them.

According to him, “It has become scandalous that judges in Imo State have not been paid for 16 months. They are being intimidated. I want to seize this opportunity to call on Mr. President and the Chief Justice of the Nigeria (CJN) to look into this problem.

“I appeal  to Governor Rochas Okorocha to pay these judges. And I am demanding that they must be substantially paid not later than March this year. If that is not done, I will personally lead a protest and if it means going naked I will do so. I will go naked on Weatherall Road to press home this demand.

“The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)  have gone to industrial court to institute an action against the Okorocha administration and government went to apply for objection. Is government objecting that judges have been paid their salaries or that they were demanding extra pay? All these are to delay the judicial process.

“The judges have been so intimidated that they find it difficult to give judgments. I have written to Mr.  President, to the CJN. The most important thing is the psychology of these judges. Their only sin is that they give judgment against the state government. As I am talking to you now, over N7 billion judgments are against the government. The state has not been obeying the rule of law,” he noted.

Ohakim used the occasion to declare his interest for governorship in 2019, stating that he was concerned about the decay of the state in the past eight years.

“Again, because of what I have seen in the state, this state requires leader that has institutional memory.”

He stated that the state economy had collapsed, describing it as most unfortunate.

“I have been under intense pressure to aspire for governor of the state for the second term. I am the only person that will run the state for only four years and handover. And I am not going to learn on the job. I already know what to do if I become governor by 2019,” he stated.