Former Deputy President of the Senate and Enugu State governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ike Ekweremadu, has withdrawn from the race, saying his “ambition is not worth the life of any Enugu son or daughter.”

Ekweremadu, whose ambition unsettled the PDP in the state, especially after he took the party to court over the election of the three-man delegates for the primary election of the party, congratulated the winner of the PDP governorship primary election, Mr. Peter Mbah.

In a statement he issued after meeting with his supporters and political associates in Enugu, yesterday, the lawmaker, who regretted that his lofty plans for the transformation of Enugu, “A Pathway to a New Enugu,” was sabotaged, noted that the light of political emancipation he lit with his supporters, though dimmed temporarily, would never be extinguished.

The statement states in part: “After consulting widely with elders of our party, as well as friends and respected elders across the country and beyond; after a long and painstaking introspection on our contributions to the development of the PDP; after considering the current security situation in the South East and the need not put anybody in harm’s way by a foreseeable combustive political environment, as my ambition is not worth the life of any Enugu son or daughter; after considering that the things that hold us together as Ndi Enugu will outlive the treacheries of the moment; after receiving assurances from the gubernatorial candidate of our party, Peter Mbah, that he would integrate our “Pathway to a New Enugu State” in his programme, as well as his assurances of participation of everybody in his campaign team and government, I, hereby, withdraw from the 2023 gubernatorial contest in Enugu. I congratulate Peter Mbah and wish him success.”