Lagos — Chairman of Ebonyi State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Dave Umahi, in this interview with Christopher Isiguzo speaks on the leadership crisis in the party which led to the emergence of a parallel executive council opposed to the second term bid of Governor Martin Elechi in 2011.

There seems to be a major problem in the PDP in Ebonyi state, what really is the problem?

I don't think there is any problem in the PDP in Ebonyi state. Somebody who is not even a party member somehow found an avenue to organise a party in his house does not constitute a problem in Ebonyi state at all.

But a group of people emerged recently and said that they have formed another faction of the party, so how do you look at that?

Like I said there is no parallel faction of the PDP in Ebonyi state, somebody simply went and forged people's signatures and assembled those signatures and tagged it parallel executive. Those people, whose signatures were forged, have even come to us to deny their involvement in that charade. They even swore to an affidavit that they are not members of any parallel executives; that no congress was held anywhere to warrant their being made members of an executive and that they abide by the authentic party executive under my chairmanship and even the man they claimed to have conducted the purported congress is under oath and has declared that he was not even in the state when the supposed congress was held which he was said to have conducted. So, you see the whole thing has exposed itself that it is only but a calculated attempt which we have since discovered to disorganise the party, but unfortunately for them, the party in Ebonyi is too focused, too tight, well united to be disorganised.

According to them, their grouse is that they are not being carried along by the present government in the state. Some people claim that they have been sidelined since the advent of this government?

Their grouse is that they want the same level of violence we witnessed in Ebonyi state sometime in 2000 to repeat itself, I don't understand what they mean by been carried along. You are a journalist, do you accept that when public fund comes from Abuja, we should sit down and share it that is the definition of being carried along. Jobs are advertised based on the availability of funds in the state and there are due processes in getting those jobs. Everywhere in the country now, there are due process. Is the governor going to circumvent due process just to carry them along? If they have companies, they should go and register with the state government, bid for jobs and if anybody denies them that opportunity, then they would now complain but to sit down somewhere and decide that public funds be shared and at the end of the day the governor will go out of office with bad name, I don't think he is prepared to do it and the party will not accept that kind of governance. So, I don't understand what they mean by being carried along. If people come together and form a cabal with the belief that unless funds are shared, nothing goes, then it's a very funny situation and we want to see how far they can go.

Recently, Governor Elechi was quoted as saying that he cannot guarantee the security of Radio Nigeria and NTA stations in the state just because they wanted to receive Adol Awam, the factional chairman. What is your comment on this?

Well, PDP in Ebonyi sent a petition to the commissioner of police and copied to the governor who is the Chief Security Officer of the state and in that petition, they complained that Adol Awam who is not a member of the party should not speak for the party and should not use government organs to malign the party that he is not even a member of the party and the youths were threatening that they were going to burn down the stations and that they would attack Adol Awam.

What the governor said is that we should abide by the rules. You don't because you feel aggrieved; you now go about using government organs to incite the people against the government. Governor made it clear that he would not guarantee what would likely come out of such action should it be allowed to go on; that's all and people are saying all manner of things. He did not say people should not be allowed to use the NTA or FRCN stations to make their feelings public but what he is saying is that we must have to play by the rules. The masses also have the right to say that somebody is deceiving them and could decide to go on rampage; that's exactly what the governor was trying to avoid. This particular man has fought every government in this state, but unfortunately, this one will be his last

The governor has been known to have enjoyed a cordial relationship with the opposition parties in the state, he has even gone a step further to fund the activities of the CNPP in the state, but latest events tend to show that the governor is intolerant of the opposition.

Has Adol Awam accepted that he is opposition; I thought he claims to be a PDP member. The governor was not talking about CNPP, PPA, ANPP or any other party, but he is saying let PPA members not hide under a faction of PPA to go and cause problems. Allow the authentic PPA leadership to exist in the state, by doing so, you are playing by the rules, the same thing to PDP and other parties. If you break the law as a journalist now, people can react differently and governor is saying let everybody abide by the rules of the game and that if you break the law because you are desperate, as Chief Security Officer, he may not even be in the state to guarantee what would be the consequences of your action. So the governor is still enjoying good relationship with the opposition if at all we still have any because he has done so much to encourage them, we believe they are the ones that would make us to understand when we are making mistakes as to be able to correct them. We are still going to give them money during the local government election. We plead with the governor to still fund them so they could continue to be part of the electoral process. The governor is not deviating from his earlier stance concerning the opposition parties.

One of the major issues they have raised in their petition is that they don't want the blanket endorsement of the governor for a second term by the PDP in the state. Has the PDP in Ebonyi state really endorsed Elechi for a second term?

But you have followed our activities while you were in the state and you know too well that there has been no time the PDP executives in the state came out to say they have endorsed Elechi that nobody is going to contest the primaries with him and all that, nobody has said so, but you see illiteracy is a very terrible disease, very terrible. The constitution of the PDP does not allow any state chapter to endorse anybody; section 17.1 of the party constitution stipulates that NEC is the final authority in terms of who goes for any position. So, if these people are informed, they should know that the state has no power to endorse anybody. Even the local government election; when we finish our primaries, we still send it to them; they would be one that would now direct us to forward the outcome to EBSIEC. If actually they were determined to achieve anything, they ought to have first of all studied the party's constitution to know how to go about their desires, but unfortunately, they are not well informed.

Though, we as a party has not, what people, including the National Assembly members, House of Assembly members, council chairmen and coordinators, the councilors, founding fathers, individuals are doing is to put pressure on the governor that he must run for a second term for stability of the state. You must run so that you would complete these beautiful projects you have begun, they put those pressures, because the governor has not been known to be too desperate about public office.

In all these attacks, nobody has accused him of corruption and nobody is going to do that even when he is done with public office. We can't tell people to stop telling a man that has done well that he must contest, we can't do that. What they are saying is that whenever the party is ready to organise primaries, that governor must be part of the primaries, that's all. The governor plays by the rule and cannot accept any attempt at giving him an automatic ticket. He understands the principle of due process. He has even told us boldly that he would not tolerate anything like imposition of candidates that everybody must go through the electoral process. People are only afraid to be part of the primaries because they know that the governor possesses intimidating credentials that would be difficult for them to match.