A member of the factional executive of the Ebonyi State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Onyekachi Nwabonyi, Ogazi Linus Ogbonnaya, has revealed that Governor David Umahi sponsored them to destabilize the party.
Speaking to newsmen on Tuesday, Ogazi disclosed that he was dumping the Nwabonyi faction for the Elder Fred Udeogu caretaker committee, vowing never to be part of the people destroying the PDP.
“The matter was that we were angry over our dissolution by the national executive council of our party. So, midway we started attending court, we were sponsored to go to court,” he said.
“We discovered that the efforts so far, and the money being spent by the person sponsoring us is not meant to reinvigorate PDP in Ebonyi and it was meant to destroy the party.
“And at my level, I don’t want to be associated with such a move, that at my age will be sponsored to destroy the party I belong to and nothing more. So, based on that, I don’t want to continue in that process. I want anybody to use me to destroy the PDP.
“PDP has been so faithful and helpful to me and every other Ebonyians. If you have benefited from the party, and if you want to leave, then leave. Allow the party to be on its own. Don’t destroy the party, and if you want to destroy the party, then I will not be part of it.
“The struggle to reclaim the structure of the party was not for the growth of the party. It was for destruction and nobody coerced me. I joined the process as a demonstration of our dissolution
“Engr. David Umahi was the one sponsoring us to go to court, and that’s why his elder brother was the second leading counsel to the legal tussles and it is not hidden.”
Umahi Has No Hand In Ebonyi PDP Crisis – Aide
Reacting while speaking to newsmen, the Special Assistant on Media to Umahi, Francis Nwaze, dismissed the allegation that the Ebonyi governor sponsored the crisis rocking the PDP.
Nwaze pointed out that Umahi has joined the All Progressive Congress (APC) and had no time to interfere with the affairs of the PDP.
He said: “For clarity, the Governor at no point threatened anybody or a group of persons over the raging PDP face-off nor engineered any violence against the PDP and couldn’t have contemplated such having left the party with the full complement of the leaders of the state some months ago.
“It is therefore senseless that instead of trying to find solutions to internal disharmony bedeviling the party in the State, it is only hell-bent on casting aspersions on the Government of Governor Umahi over issues it knows nothing about.
“Therefore, I enjoin Fred Udogu and the meagar remnants of my former party people at the state level to focus on their party and desist from any character that is capable of causing disaffection among Ebonyians. Let Governor Umahi be.”