Ex-minister, Nnaji, joins guber race as Enugu awaits Ugwuanyi’s ‘surprise’

Barely 24 hours to the end of the sale of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nomination forms, indications have emerged that Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is out to surprise some federal lawmakers that rushed into buying governorship and National Assembly nomination forms.

Former governor and senator representing Enugu East Senatorial District, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, had at the height of the zoning controversy that pitched ex-Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweramadu against other stakeholders, noted that the tradition in the PDP had been for the incumbent governor to give direction.

However, an investigation by The Guardian revealed that Governor Ugwuanyi is peeved by the scramble for governorship and House of Representatives cum Senate nomination forms by some members of the National Assembly.

A source at the PDP national headquarters confided in The Guardian that an emissary of the governor had purchased not less than six nomination forms, stressing that it is likely that the governor wants to enforce a power rotation arrangement in the state.

Recall that erstwhile Governor Sullivan Chime fell out with Ekweremadu in 2015, when he (Chime) tried to enforce a maximum of two terms for federal lawmakers to expand political access among communities.

Contacted, Special Adviser to Governor Ugwuanyi on Media, Steve Oruruo, denied knowledge of any attempt by his principal to intervene in the power-sharing arrangement within communities in the state, adding that the current administration was busy pursuing its developmental paradigm to a successful close.

AS the contestations among local governments from Enugu East Senatorial District continue, one-time Minister for Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, has joined the gubernatorial race.

He has been at the forefront of the clamouring of Nkanu East to produce Ugwuanyi’s successor in 2023.

Nnaji and the Managing Director of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, Chief Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, who served as Chief of Staff Government House and later Commissioner of Finance during Senator Nnamani’s second term are the prominent aspirants from Nkanu East.

PDP stalwarts in the state are currently pushing for the spread of elective positions among the component local government areas, even as the people of Isi-Uzor Local Council contend that 2023 is time for them to represent the senatorial zone if the governorship goes to Nkanu East.

In an open letter to the member representing Nsukka/Igboeze South Federal Constituency, Pat Asadu, a 2007 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Peter Chigozie Okonkwo, reminded the lawmaker that after 16 years at the House of Representatives, 2023 is time for him to quit.

Okonkwo, who rejoined PDP after his unsuccessful governorship bid, said he was compelled to write the lawmaker “on the impending calamity you want to place on our people by seeking a fifth term in the Federal House of Representatives.”