Dispelling Misconceptions: Correcting the Narrative of PDP’s 24-Year Governance in Abia (Video) | #NwokeukwuMascot

 Opinion 

...Deconstructing the Lies of PDP's 24-Year Rule in Abia By Enyinnaya Appolos | #NwokeukwuMascot

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When lies are repeated over time, the uninformed may begin to believe them as truth. There is a deliberate attempt by detractors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to misinform the public that the PDP governed Abia State continuously for 24 years, from 1999 to 2023. This is not true and does not represent the facts of Abia’s political history.

Importantly, this deliberate falsehood needs to be deconstructed to educate some detractors and e-rats who are unleashed to abuse people online without true knowledge of Abia's political history. Some of them were not even born then, hence the need to school them.

It is true that Senator Orji Uzor Kalu was elected governor of Abia State on the PDP platform in 1999. However, in 2005, while in his second term as governor, Kalu left the PDP and founded the now-defunct Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA).

In the 2007 general election, Kalu handed over power to Senator Theodore Orji who was elected Governor of Abia State on the PPA platform while still in prison in Lagos State. Orji later left the PPA and joined the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) due to a strained political relationship with Kalu. However, he did not stay long in APGA and decamped to the PDP, which he saw as his best chance to secure a second term in 2011. Orji remained in the PDP until 2015 when he handed over power to Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu. This indicates that from 2005 to 2011, the PPA and APGA held sway in Abia.

It is important to note that Dr. Ikpeazu, elected on the PDP platform, is the first governor of Abia to complete his 8-year tenure on the platform that elected him, from 2015 to 2023.

To reinforce this point, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, the 2007 PDP governorship candidate, highlighted during a recent stakeholders' meeting of the PDP in Umuahia that this is not the first time the PDP has been in opposition in the state.

Dee Onyema, who remains a symbol of consistent loyalty to the PDP, not just in Abia State but nationally, said; "We have remained in the PDP. And I want all PDP members to remain steadfast. Being in the opposition is not new to us in Abia PDP.

“We have been in opposition before. In 2005, a governor who was elected on the PDP platform decamped from our PDP and left with his people. As foundation members of the party, we remained, sat down, and rebuilt the party. What we did was to go back to the foundation principle of the PDP as a people's party. In PDP, power belongs to the people.

“We are going to rebuild the party again, and in doing so, we must go back to the people. Every member of this party matters, even the people at the bottom ladder. We therefore have to go to our various wards and allow new leaders to emerge from there. The younger people must be given a chance to take up leadership of the party. I will stand with our leaders and people as we rebuild the PDP in Abia."

Video: Chief Ugochukwu Onyema’s speech in the just concluded Abia PDP Expanded stakeholders meetings.

The fact is that the PDP is the most popular and grass-rooted political party in Abia. This fact accounts for why the party has held governorship power longer than any other political party. There are no current or former political officeholders in Abia, including present and past governors, who have not been members of the PDP at some point.

Regarding how and why the PDP lost the 2023 governorship elections, it has emerged that some party members, who aspired to be governor but were discouraged, collaborated with another party to manipulate election results against the PDP and its candidate. However, these elements have since left the PDP, and the remaining members are determined to rebuild the party and strive to regain power in future state elections.