FACTIONAL FEUD STALLS PDP SCREENING IN ENUGU

THE ongoing rancour in the Enugu State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has stalled the screening of House of Assembly aspirants in the state.

Also, security men in Enugu on Tuesday night foiled an attempt by some unknown persons to kidnap the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Screening Panel for House of Assembly aspirants, Mrs. Grace Eyo Ita.

Meanwhile, the Police in Enugu have warned politicians in the state against breaching the peace in the state in the guise of politics.

The Commissioner of Police, Dona Danzumi said the Police had not arrested any gubernatorial aspirant in the state as being rumoured.

Eyo-Ita disclosed yesterday that a four-man gang arrived in her hotel and told her that the National Chairman of the PDP, Okwesileze Nwodo, sent them to take her to a safe place but she told them that she was not sent to Enugu by the Nwodo but by the party.

According to her, when the men failed to trick her out of her hotel room, they told her that Nwodo said she should give them the materials for the exercise so that they could take them to a safe place.

But when her aides alerted security men at the hotel, the suspected kidnappers fled the premises.

Eyo-Ita stated that the screening exercise was yet to take off in Enugu because the two PDP factions in the state had not agree to hold the exercise at a neutral venue.

According to her, on arrival in Enugu she discovered that there were two factions within the PDP and she implored members of the panel that the exercise should be conducted in a neutral venue.

However, two members of the panel who had arrived before her insisted that the screening should be conducted at the dissolved Vita Abba factional party secretariat.

Eyo-Ita added that after her panel had visited the Abba secretariat at 1 Chime Lane, GRA Enugu, she insisted that the panel must also visit the secretariat of the other faction.

The panel chief claimed to have been pressurised to conduct the screening at the Abba secretariat but she refused. Telling the party members at the secretariat that she would be back in an hour, Eyo-Ita returned to her hotel.

She disclosed that three members of the five-man panel currently in Enugu were fake and that she had intimated the National headquarters of the PDP on the development with a view to replacing them.