By Josephine Isaac
A former Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State, Dr Ben Nwoye, has slammed those kicking against the declaration of the former Deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, to contest the Enugu State governorship seat in 2023.
Ekweremadu, a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had recently made his intention to contest the governorship seat while briefing newsmen in Enugu.
Nwoye, who spoke on Thursday, while interacting with journalists in Enugu, asserted that there was no constitutional barrier keeping Ekweremadu from contestingHe added that zoning was not even a barrier to stop him from contesting for the governorship position.
Nwoye said: “The attack on Senator Ekweremadu is a show of weakness from people attacking him. If the people attacking him have a better programme or good programme they should channel those programmes and show why they are better than Senator Ike Ekweremadu and not attack him.
“I’m for zoning because it has brought peace, equity and fairness in Enugu state but zoning does not prevent anyone from running for an election, there are other factors that prevent someone from running but not on zoning
When zoning is done in any political party, the best thing is to appeal to those that are not from the zone where the position is zoned to drop their ambition for peace and fairness, you don’t threaten, you don’t force them to drop their ambition.
“But unfortunately there are others who believe they have the capacity to run and they have the constitutional right to run but what we see is people attacking them. Specifically, Senator Ike Ekweremadu does not deserve the type of attack that some people in PDP are giving him.One bad thing they said is that there was an agreement and they start flying papers but they should understand the meaning of the agreement, what did you give him to agree for that because there must be an exchange of something.
“The Enugu East people ought to send a delegation to Senator Ekweremadu and plead with him to allow Enugu East to go but for the fact that they are attacking him means he has all it takes to contest.
I gave my support to zoning during the rally organised by Enugu East, not because I’m for PDP but because it’s fair because we started the zoning with Enugu East in 1999, then to Enugu West and to Enugu North so it ought to go back to Enugu East and the people of Enugu East has appealed to other aspirants from Enugu West and North to support Enugu East so that we can continue to enjoy fair distribution.”