NWODO BLASTS PDP OVER HIS REMOVAL
Immediate past national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo who was sacked few days after the party's presidential nomination has opened up at last. He blasted the party for acting on a 'kangaroo' court order, which he said has not been served on him up till today. Nwodo also declared that there was 'wayo' in the PDP primary in Enugu State.
'And those who did that wayo and took what belongs to other people…there is a God in heaven; and those who have stolen these mandates, God will restore it to the right people. And for those who are battling in court to get back their mandate, we pray to God to help them. I pray God to come down and manifest His power,' he said.
On the tussle over the PDP guber candidate in the state, Nwodo said the battle was far from being over despite the decision of an Abuja Federal High Court to dismiss the case against Chief Anayo Onwuegbu. According to him, 'Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State did not get judgment at the High Court; it was at the higher level that he was declared governor; so the case of Enugu is not over yet.' Reaction, the state chairman of PDP, Mr.Vita Abba said Nwodo's comments were unfortunate and fell short of the fundamental attributes of a loyal party man who had risen to the exalted position of a party chairman.
'It is very clear that the former National Chairman is living in the past. Mixing party politics with church doctrine is totally misplaced. Obviously, he who is not with us is against us. All over the world, best practices encourage a party to be one starting from the ward to the national. So his utterances against candidates duly elected by the PDP in the state entirely contradicts the rule of law, as the law of the land has vindicated the just.'
Nwodo who held a well attended rally in support of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in his country home in Ukehie, Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area extolled the virtues of the president and urged his people to vote en masse for him. He was, however, silent on other elective positions. When confronted by newsmen, he said he would allow the people to vote according to their conscience with regards to the governorship, national and state assembly positions.
Nwodo blasted PDP for choosing to obey the court order against him when there were so many other court orders the party ignored. 'Up till now, nobody has served me the court order; and you know there were many orders PDP refused to obey, but they chose to obey my own which was never served on me.'
Nwodo disclosed that he petitioned the National Judicial Council (NJC) about the 'Kangarooness' of the court; 'my lawyer raised an objection that the court has no jurisdiction; the court never ruled on that. It proceeded to hear the motion and to give an order of injunction. It is the ABCD of law, that if the jurisdiction of the court is challenged you settle that first; we challenged the jurisdiction because it is a state court trying to preside over a federal matter and they ended up presiding on a federal matter and they never served me the order.'
On what he makes out of the whole process which led to his removal, he said: 'Well, that's Nigeria and what Okwy Nwodo is fighting. And I will fight till I get to the grave. There must be justice in Nigeria. There must be equity.' 'The situation is that we have problem in PDP, it's not only in Enugu State across the whole country; one of the Judges was telling me that they have over 400 cases arising from the primary and 80% of them are from the PDP; so it's a generized problem, and we have it here in Enugu.
'So a lot of people who tried to benefit from internal democracy which we were preaching when we were there won their primary but when I left things started to happen and most of these results were changed and those who were aggrieved went to court. 'In the case of Enugu State we head protracted negotiation to solve Enugu problem and then at the last negotiation we agreed that people who were agreed that people who were on my own side should run for the National and State Assembly positions for the Nsukka Zone while those on the Governor and Senator Ekweremadu side should run in the East and West Senatorial zones respectively.
'But even that agreement as we are here today is not being kept; soon after the agreement the people I sat down and did agreement with alongside the president removed me as National chairman; so it is my responsibility to support what we agreed on and that is why I support those who are in court from Enugu State.
on the crowd at the rally Nwodo said; 'You can see for yourself; all these people who are here they came on their own; in-fact there are two campaigns going on now in this area; my friends who are in Labour Party were afraid that if I campaign for PDP it will affect them so they told their supporters not to come; the PDP people with the state governor said nobody should come; so you have seen for yourself in spite of all that.'