Presidential aspirants under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Cosmas Ndukwe and Dr Nwachukwu Anakwenze, Monday insisted that other zones in the country should reciprocate the support the Southeast has provided their candidates in the past by electing an Igbo president in 2023.
Both aspirants spoke to correspondents at the national secretariat of the party after returning their expression of interest and nomination forms, agreeing that the Southeast zone had often helped other parts of the country to produce the nation’s president.
Ndukwe advised the main opposition party to zone the post to the Southeast, saying that if he emerges the candidate, PDP will not have any problem marketing him.
While noting that he has the requisite experience to lead the country to peace and prosperity, he added: “I have served as a chief of staff in Abia State, Deputy Speaker of the 6th House Abia State.
“I am prepared to recover Nigeria and hand it over to the people, the real people, the owners. When the people are carried along in activities that concern the rulership of Nigeria, the minutest policy of this nation, it will begin to be made manifest.
“I’m convinced that it is the time of the Southeast. I am convinced that PDP will have no problem marketing my person, a man with street credibility.
“So, PDP should have someone who has felt the pulse of the nation who started from scratch, I started my life even as a tailor and I migrated to be a photographer, and I became the very first person to introduce the internet in the whole of Abia states in 1993. And I have grown businesses from the cradle.
“I think it’s time for people like us, who have thought of people, who have the thought of the nation, who have passed through the crucibles and strategy of suffering to saddle the seat of this nation and recover Nigeria from doldrums because this nation is going down to a point where there is nothing left again. And it needs people who have the wherewithal to be able to recover this nation.”
On his part, Dr Anakwenze expressed his desire to see one of the several Southeast PDP presidential aspirants chosen as the party candidate.
According to him, the Southwest was compensated with power at the death of Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the 1993 presidential election.
“We supported everybody. It’s time for everybody to support us,” he said, adding: “Well, the West have had their own. South South has had its own turn. So, for equity and fairness, the only zone that has not ruled this country is the Southest and that’s why some of us are throwing our hats into the ring to be able to talk to the PDP family and delegates that will come for the Congress to consider fairness.
“We have shown strength, we have shown commitment, we have shown respect, we have shown honour and this is the time the PDP will consider the brain that will recover this country from total collapse.”
Anakwenze blamed the suffering of Nigerians on bad leadership, saying that if he wins the PDP presidential ticket and emerges as president, he will rebuild the nation, leveraging on the talents of the youth.
He further stated: ” We have collapsed in almost every point or facet of this nation. We have collapsed in security, we have collapsed in the economy, we have collapsed everywhere. I have the intention to rebuild the nation.
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“I know the PIB law passed recently, that encourages modular refinery but how many of them have been made known. I can be able to pull it from $1 million to $150,000 which is accepted to the license fee. I believe that the problem of petroleum scarcity will be solved.”
Meanwhile, a gubernatorial aspirant under the PDP for the Ebonyi State election, Obinna Ogba, has vowed that the party will retrieve its mandate transferred to the All Progressives Congress (APC) by Governor Dave Umahi when he defected from the party.
Also speaking to reporters after the submission of his forms, he also said Umahi is no threat to the PDP because he defected to the APC alone.
Ogba stated: “The governor left alone to APC. He did not leave with anyone in the party. The party people are still intact. The legislators are still there, the House of Reps members are still there, the House of Assembly members, eight of them, are still with us and the leaders of the party. So, we don’t even know that he has left the party.
“He left the party, only himself and few of his appointees. You know that when he left, so many of his appointees resigned their appointment and still remained in the PDP.
“So, we don’t have any problem whether we’re going to win or not. That is not an issue. What is important is that we as PDP should organize ourselves and come together and take our mandate.”
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