BY NNAMDI OGBOBE
Serious crisis is brewing in the ranks of the Enugu State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) following desperate moves by its leadership to woo the ward executive members of the Labour Party in the state with financial rewards in exchange for support in the 2023 general elections.
As the ranks of the Labour Party in the state continue to grow each passing day, the leadership of the PDP, afraid of a resounding defeat awaiting them in the forthcoming elections, has elected to bribe the ward executives of the Labour Party with “irresistible amounts of money” for them to dump their party, and collapse their structures to the PDP.
Sources reveal that PDP had already made overtures to the executive members of Labour Party at Eha Ndiagu Ward in Nsukka Local Government Area, where stupendous amounts of money were allegedly offered to them as trade off to betray their party and support PDP.
Each Ward executive was reported to have been promised N1 million for the sordid deal, and as at the time of filing this report, a team of negotiators from the Enugu State Government House has been dispatched to Nkpunano Ward, also in Nsukka Local Government Area, where the Labour Party is believed to have its strongest support base in Enugu North Zone.
Each executive member in Nkpunano ward was also reportedly promised N1 million, in addition to higher political portfolios and contracts, should the PDP win the elections.
But these overtures by the leadership of the PDP is reportedly not going down well with hundreds of PDP members in the area. They complain that while the PDP leaders were chasing the Labour Party ward executives with mouthful monetary offers, they themselves who remained faithful to the PDP were not properly taken care of by Governor Ugwuanyi.
They vowed that should the PDP continue in that direction of ignoring them, they would have no option than to switch over en masse to the Labour Party.
A member of the team of the negotiators who was sent to Eha Ndi Agu, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said what the PDP was doing to its loyal members “is evil and against the law governing party loyalty”.
“This our party has always treated its loyal members very badly. Look at me now; I have been included in a team that is negotiating with those who left our party to join Labour, and promising to give each of them one million naira if they agree to betray Labour and return to the party. But I, who is doing the negotiation, I do not even have up to N50,000 home and abroad.”
Another party member who is equally in the team of the negotiators lambasted the party leadership for treating its loyal members with little regard.
“How can I be here, and they will call Labour Ward Executives and be giving them N1 million each to decamp to PDP? It is not possible. This our party is behaving like a man who is buying expensive jewelry for his unfaithful wife while treating the one that has been faithful to him like a lepper.
“We cannot continue like this. I was made an SA only about a year ago, but I have seen the governor reward people who were insulting him and betraying the party with SSA and SPA. Some even go to the Lion Building and collect N5 million and N10 million. Is that how to reward loyalty?,” he lamented.
He feared that if the party did not change its rewards system, thousands of party members would decamp to Labour Party in the coming days.
