A former Senate President and the Secretary, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Adolphus Wabara, has warned the Abia State government and the party that they will lose the 2023 gubernatorial election if another Ngwa man tries to succeed Ikpeazu.
Speaking with newsmen in Umuahia Monday, Wabara warned that any attempt to make another Ngwa man succeed Gov Okezie Ikpeazu, who is also an Ngwa man, will be counter productive for the PDP, while the party might get a protest vote in Abia come 2023.
“If Ukwa clan should not be considered because it belongs to Abia South Senatorial zone where power currently resides, then power should move back to Abia North where it started from in 1999,” he said, noting further that, “anything short of allowing power to come to Ukwa or rotate back to Abia North in 2023 would spell doom for the PDP.”
He said he was raising the alarm because of his love for the PDP, and advised the party in the state not to toy with the Abia Charter of Equity and zoning arrangement for which the party is known.
He warned that Abia might fall for the All Progressives Grand Alliance should PDP fail to do the right thing and on time too, while advising Abia PDP to learn from the party’s national leadership which recently set up a 37-man committee on zoning so as not to jeopardise its electoral fortunes in 2023.
“Zoning is an integral part of the PDP. The Abia State PDP should learn from our national leadership and respect zoning. Our party shall not be doing the right thing at the centre and here somebody will be acting with impunity.
“No single person has the authority to decide the next governor of the state. The party caucus, elders and stakeholders will have to meet.
“Gov. Ikpeazu’s successor may be the governor’s choice but that should only happen after the right thing has been done in line with the constitution of our great party, which is micro zoning to Ukwa or Abia North.
“I am saying this because of my love for our great party, which of course enjoys large followership in Abia. But if the PDP leadership doesn’t do the right thing, the party will get protest vote in 2023.
“Abians will vote the PDP 85% but if the governorship ticket is not ceded to Ukwa or Abia North in line with power rotation arrangement, there will be a protest vote.
“Abia is not ready for Ngwa back to back thing. What they are doing now is exactly why the PDP lost Plateau State to the APC in 2015. Ukwa or Abia North should produce Ikpeazu’s successor,” Wabara cautioned.
Last month, the immediate past governor of the state and Senator representing Abia Central, Senator Theodore Orji, had warned that anybody working against power rotation arrangement, which is in tandem with the Abia Charter of Equity, would be embarking on a dangerous political voyage.
Gov Okezie Ikpeazu’s kinsmen, through the Ngwa Council of Elders led by Dr. Max Nduaguibe, have been advocating that the Abia South retains power for another eight years and vehemently opposed to the agitation for rotation of power to the North, insisting that the Ngwa clan in Abia Central will take over from Ikpeazu.