By NewsCritic Reporters
Former Abia State Governor Dr Okezie Ikpeazu has come under severe public opprobrium over his “feather weights” political remarks during the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, stakeholders meeting held Thursday 23rd May, 2024 in Umuahia.
To many followers of the Abia State political trajectory, the statement credited to the embattled former governor Ikpeazu referring to the party chieftains who defected from the PDP recently as ‘bad people’ and political ‘feather weights’ fall short of expectations and standards required of a former governor, who led his party to a disastrous electioneering outcomes in recent history.
The fact still remains that following the outcome of the 2023 General Election, many PDP chieftains and pioneer members of the party in Abia State started leaving the party in droves, and this might not be unconnected with the party’s abysmal failure at the polls owing to its internal contradictions.
Though this is not the first time in history that people would dump the PDP in Abia State, for instance in 2015, in 2019 and 2023 many stakeholders of the PDP left for other political parties mainly the All Progressives Congress, APC, the APGA, YPP and lately to the Labour Party, LP, due to one reason or the other. This has become a recurring decimal, yet the party has been able to weather the storm to continue to remain afloat without sinking.
That is why the former governor is seen by many as a joker whose statement is devoid of any point and not worth anything. They argued that after he caused the failure of the party at the 2023 polls because he refused to support many of the notable party’s candidates due to selfish interests, and also manipulated the delegates list that almost destabilized the party, that such person shouldn’t expect anything to the contrary.
Hence, his attempt to portray those who left the party as bad people and feather weight politicians is an argument that fly in the face of common sense, and only exposes his dishonest political schemes, according to one analyst.
Hon Cosmos Ndukwe former Chief of Staff to then Gov T. A Orji responded to Ikpeazu’s statement thus, “I won landslide in my ward for PDP, the man who called us feather weight lost election in his ward, lost seven federal constituencies, three senatorial zones and seat of governor given to him by the joint efforts of feather weight association”, he jeered on.
A one-time minority leader of Abia State House of Assembly Hon Prince Ikedi Ezekwesiri in a statement he made on behalf of the PDP defectors, said that Ikpeazu’s remarks could best be described as “the audacity of shamelessness”.
Ezekwesiri opined that “rather than his trademark jestering, after his abysmal performance cost the party her electoral victory, one expected he would have tendered a strong apology to the party and not the hogwash being displayed”.
He went further to say that “he failed the party and Abians. He institutionalized cronyism in governance and messed up the party at all levels. He brazenly worked against candidates of the party, adding that “it’s important that he addresses the issues why people are leaving the party instead of his comical rhetoric and grandstanding”, the former lawmaker posits.
Recall that Ikpeazu is still having a running battle with his successor Gov Alex Otti over the missing N10 billion approved for the Abia airport project, as revealed by the forensic audit report. Gov Otti has insisted that the money must be returned to the state coffers, leaving Ikpeazu and his aides struggling to explain to Abians how the said money was diverted to other road projects.
