By CHARLES IWUOHA

Chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi State, Chief Abia Onyike, said the recent endorsement of All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate, Rt. Hon. Francis Nwifuru, by Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, won’t affect the chances of the party in winning Saturday’s governorship and state Houses of Assembly Polls in the state.

Onyike who is the Director, Media and Publicity of PDP Campaign Council, added that it was a hasty decision, borne out of self-aggrandisement and a criminal betrayal of Ebonyi people for Anyim to abandon the anti-Umahi struggle which culminated in Umahi’s defection to APC.

In a statement on Thursday in Abakiliki, Onyike stated that Anyim has lost whatever integrity he had left in him after his abysmal outing in the PDP Presidential primaries where he got 14 votes allocated to Southeast delegates.

“For Anyim to abandon the anti-Umahi struggle which culminated in Umahi’s carpet crossing from PDP to APC in November 2020, is a very dangerous display of ideological barrenness.

“I used to consider myself an Anyim sympathiser or follower but what he has done now is beyond this Saturday’s election. We have parted ways. He has abandoned Ebonyians, already trapped under Govenor Umahi’s evil empire, to be roasted in perdition,” he said.

According to the statement, the new retrogressive Anyim/Umahi alliance was a coalition of renegade political forces bent on further enslaving the people for another eight years.

He noted that Umahi was helped by Anyim in 2015, when he used the instruments of the PDP Federal power to rig the elections in his favour against Edward Nkwegu of the Labour Party (LP).

Continuing, Onyike said the new popular democratic coalition in Ebonyi State, led by the PDP Governorship Candidate, Dr Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii, was an unstoppable liberation movement poised to defeat Governor Umahi's political contraptions.

“No matter how monstrous they have become, Anyim will soon regret his betrayal of the Ebonyi masses.

“After all, Anyim was the one who sowed the seeds of the crises in PDP because of his weak leadership credentials. He brought Senator Obinna Ogba and wanted to impose him as the Governorship Candidate of the party, without minding that he (Ogba) hailed from Ebonyi Central Senatorial District.

“Having lost out in the primaries, Anyim now suddenly begins to preach a return of power to Ebonyi North. This is the height of political inconsistency within a period of few months. Ebonyians would no longer tolerate such unprincipled characters as leaders,” Onyike said in the statement.

He further explained that Saturday’s elections would prove to Governor Umahi and his fellow travellers that power resides with the people and not in the hands of a few oppressors.