The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, has berated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for alleged serial injustice against the region, describing the zone’s marriage with the main opposition party as nightmarish.
The group urged leaders of the party in the region to seek political alignment outside of the party ahead of the 2027 general election, maintaining that the region has no future in the PDP.
It observed that besides what it termed the mistreatment of the region over the position of National Secretary zoned to it, the party had no plan to remedy the injustice of its failure to zone the party’s 2023 presidential ticket to the region ahead of the 2027 election.
COSYL made its position known in a statement entitled “PDP has Used and Dumped the South East: Time To Dump the Party,” issued by its President-General, Comrade Goodluck Ibem, on Monday.
“We note with deep sadness that a party co-founded by one of the likes of the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, has continued to disrespect, use, and dump the South East region without regrets and redresses since the Jos 1998 Convention, when Ekwueme, was thrown under the bus in the presidential primary election for the 1999 election.
“For the record, despite Ekwueme’s fate at the Jos convention, the South East gave PDP and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo 3.2 million votes, representing 78 percent of votes they cast in the 1999 presidential poll.
“In 2003, PDP got 4.5 million votes from the region towards Obasanjo’s re-election, the presence of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, a revered Igbo hero on the ballot notwithstanding.
“The South East voted massively again for PDP/Umaru Yar’Adua in 2024 even when Chief Mike Ahamba, SAN, was Muhummadu Buhari’s running mate.
“PDP and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan got 4,985,246 in the South East in 2011 as opposed to 76,228 votes secured by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) despite Atiku running with Senator Ben Obi as vice presidential candidate.
“Even when several other traditionally PDP states worked against the party in favour of the APC in 2015, Dr. Jonathan’s votes in the region were so massive as against Buhari’s abysmal performance that the former President punished the region mercilessly for eight years. The region was denied an opportunity to even head a paramilitary agency like the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, while he chose a rail line project to Niger Republic over the rehabilitation of the Eastern Rail Corridor to benefit the South East,” the group recounted.
Continuing, COSEYL maintained that PDP’s woes amounted to ‘Nemesis Pro-Max’; retribution at work for the injustice done to the South East region.
It recalled that whereas the PDP 2015 Post-Election Review Committee chaired by former Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, recommended the zoning of the party’s presidential ticket to the North in 2019 as a remedy for the perceived injustice to the region in 2015, “the PDP failed a moral test by refusing to zone the ticket to the South East in 2023 or take necessary steps to do things right with the region ahead of 2027.
“Lets make no mistake about it, PDP’s woes of today is karma at work, given the injustice ingrained in their failure to zone the 2023 presidential ticket to the South East region. This bad fate forced the likes of Mr. Peter Obi and Engr. Dave Umahi out of the party and resulted in the electoral loss in the last general election.
“Therefore, let no one be fooled; the South East has no future in the ungrateful and unjust party. It is high time South East PDP leaders took pragmatic steps to opt out of a party that has no regards for the region and chart a fresh political trajectory and realignment for the dignity, political redemption, and development of the region,” the statement concluded.
