▪︎debunks merger with PDP, says proponents are political gamblers
From Chuks Moses, Awka
With barely eleven days to the Nov 6, 2021 Anambra State Governorship election, and the political parties and their candidates already in the final stages of their campaign tours, Mr Obiora Agbasimalo, candidate of the Labour Party (LP) is still allegedly missing.
This indication was given by the National Organizing Secretary Of LP and Chairman of its Anambra Governorship Campaign Council, Chief Clement Ojukwu, on Tuesday afternoon during a press conference in Awka.
Ojukwu also used the opportunity to debunk the report being widely circulated in the social media and political circles that the party was about to merge its campaign structure with that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He confirmed that Agbasimalo was kidnapped alongside one of his security aides about five weeks ago, and has since not been seen.
The party chieftain assured that the candidate is alive, and that intense negotiations involving the family, the party and the police with his abductors have continued till date.
Ojukwu said that Agbasimalo’s kidnap and disappearance was politically motivated.
This, he disclosed, was because no one thought of abducting him while he worked in a bank.
“But the moment he emerges the governorship candidate and flagbearer of the LP and his popularity soared, they came and abducted him. So, it is political. It must have been those in the race who felt that his daily rising political profile was dwarfing and diminishing their efforts must have planned and executed it for him to be out of the way,” he said.
He insisted that the party and his family as well as the security agencies whose officer was also abducted were not relenting in efforts to see the governorship hopeful out of captivity.
Asked why it was taking too long to liberate him, Chief Ojukwu declined further answers, pointing out that every other response would have security implications.
Throwing more light on the position of the party in the alleged merge plot with PDP, Ojukwu, who represented the national headquarters of LP at the press conference, said there was no truth whatsoever in the story.
He advised anyone in doubt to go to the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) where a comprehensive list of the party’s National executive were listed.
All the names mentioned in the merger plot including the one Comrade Joseph Ndirang or Najeem Yasin were never members of LP let alone being national officers of the party, he said.
The party said the press conference became necessary for official record purposes and to put to rest the activities of those he described as meddlesome interlopers and detractors.
He added, “the campaign council was continuing to work very hard to win the coming Nov 6 Anambra State Governorship election, who knows, our candidate May be released from captivity then”.