Ebonyi PDP kicks as six LG chairmen resign

By Christiana Ekpa

Six local government chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Ebonyi State have resigned from the party and are set to defect to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

It was gathered that the resignation of six out of the 13 local government chairmen of the PDP in the state may be linked to the recent defeat of the party’s governorship candidate, Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii, in the election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja, by the governor, Francis Nwifuru.

The six PDP local government chairmen who resigned from the party are Agbom Friday (Ezza South), Nwofe Philip Don (lzzi), Nwobasi Ude Chizoba (Ohaozara), Chukwu Micheal O (lvo), Ifere Sunday Bright (lkwo) and Ndukwe Orji Oka (Afikpo South).

The PDP local government chairmen, who announced their resignation in a letter which was made available to newsmen, said they are leaving the party for personal reasons.

However, in a swift reaction, Ebonyi State Chairman of the PDP, Augustine Nwazunku, called on the general public to ignore the development, noting that some of the six LG chairmen are not active members of the party in the state.

He said: “Those persons are acting haphazardly and getting themselves into anti-party activities, because there is a normal process for resigning in the party. And none of them are members of Ebonyi State caretaker committee executives to unilaterally jump up and start granting frivolous public discussion that they have done this and that.

“Many of them are no more members of our party. None of them are members of our executives. What they are doing is an informal trick to mislead the members of the public. For example, the chairman of Ezza South was sometime ago suspended by his ward and local government.

“They are either playing antics or dancing the music being played to them by someone elsewhere. As far as we are concerned, they are acting in their independent form, and so, the members of the public should not be mislaid based on that.