 It's still plus politics now, the leadership tussle that ensued and incessant issuings of press statements on directives and counter directives from the National Working Committee of the PDP in Eboi, court rulings and counter directives rulings have deeply thrown the party in the state into a litany of crisis, thus reducing to nothingness a hitherto vibrant party which once enjoyed the goodwill of Eboi people. Now as a consequence, the party currently has what is described as Eboi group, the Anya Chukhs group in the state, a situation that political pundits might say, might jeopardize the chances of the party winning the elections in the state come 2023. Now on Monday, May 2nd, 2022, Anu took over the leadership of the PDP, having received the backing of the National Leadership of the party. Directed by his sudden sack, Okori proceeded to the appeal court of Abuja to sought for a stay of pending the determination of the substantive suit. Now on May 31, fast forward, the National Working Committee of the PDP recognized Okori as its authentic chairman in Eboi state. Well, joining us to discuss this and break it down is Charles Ohtu, he is a political analyst and is joining us from Eboi. Thank you so much Mr Ohtu for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, it's very interesting to see the turn of events within the PDP in Eboi state. I mean, it's very unusual to see the tussle that we're seeing today, you know, and the national of the party seems to be in the middle of this, it reminds me of something that I've seen before. Now, also, I see that in the midst of this is two former governors, a sitting governor and of course, Iyotcha Ayyu, which is the national leader of the party. What exactly, paint a picture to us about what's really happening right now. Thank you very much. The crisis is like you must have buried in the ruins, self-inflicted, self-inflicted, I would say, the party after the defection of Deku Bumaten on November 1, 2018, a lot of persons felt, oh, they are left in body, but the stone and spirit of the party is intact. But they were not ready to trade it again, or peddle, or give it anything, another. The party can provide and beat it, and it's erect on the way to the third election. Now, it all started when the government, the issues in court now are developing. On the 16th of October, 2001, we need the party held its state condo and going from the first week of October, we started the work on that. That was the opening of the crisis. Those of us who were monitoring events in some of the congress, particularly the state congress, we could see people who were in the hold, the best, people who were out, personal survivors. Of course, you know that when my left, the party again, contention, was about the party. And the former president, Senator Empire, quickly moved in and was recognized as part of the party. The thing is we carried on to that congress point. A lot of those who felt that, okay, Senator Empire had the party should have met the leader when we deemed it to be the leaders of the party in the state. But of course, he himself and the others, they could have prepared Mr. Tosu Kokori, who had all along been called Nabuja. So, please, the board go down well with those who have been supporting the people only. Mr. Tosu Kokori, who was the public secretary of the party on the entering basis of the head of Congress? Mr. Otu, I think we're having a little problem with your audio. We're going to fix that. We'll take just a quick break and fix that and then we'll come back because we're losing some of the important things that you're telling us. We'll be right back after this break. It's still plus politics. We're still speaking with a political analyst in a Boeing state, Charles Otu. Also, before that break, we were still talking about the situation that, of course, threw up Okori and, of course, Onu. Now, I'm sure that you are aware that Okori is demanding a two billion Naira. He's saying that this has to be paid for libel. He's demanding this from Onu, saying that they have to pay for damages. Again, how feasible is this? Like I said at the beginning, the national of the party seems to be in the middle of this war. Their counter accusations, accusations, statements are being issued back and forth. Why can't the party solve this problem? I know that the PDP keeps saying constituting committees to address issues, but have these issues been addressed in its entirety? And how would this affect the elections come 2023? Thank you very much. You were very right when you pointed out that the party's national leadership has been at the middle of this. Now, it was the indecision, like I was trying to point out, of the national leadership of the party to stamp its authority, especially when the federal high court sacked Okori, that made it difficult for the party to make progress quickly. Now, when Okori was sacked, they were supposed to be an appeal that should be filed immediately. Well, without diving into the merits, we're meant to understand that that was not immediately done. Now, what that meant was that at the end of the, when the processes were offered, the party had issued directives and counter directives. It has said in a press statement by the public secretary of the party at the national level that the congress, the state primaries, we hold on the 28th and 29th. Midway to that, the prime party issued a counter directive and said, look, that it has been postponed. And having, you know, complicated and economic, the issues faction, if I should call it D, popular international issues, went ahead to hold that primaries. The other factions stayed away from it because they felt that the counter-announcement of the party was prevailing and fixed the 4th and 5th of June for their own faction. And in all of this, you see a party's national leadership that was not decisive. It did appear from what we have gathered that the national leadership of the party were taking, they were divided, some were siding on issues, the other were siding over. And at the end of the day, the crisis of who takes over the party's ticket as the national candidate of the party, the presenter candidate of the party, did not help matters. We learned, alternatively, that why Attiku was backing issues, the other group that is all back group, we are backed by Mike, that further polarized the party at the national level. Interesting. Now the court at some point had declared the rescheduled the primaries as invalid. So as it stands, there's yet to be someone who the party can point to as its candidate getting set for the 2020 elections. And I did ask, I think a couple of times, what does the future portend for the airborne state PDP, whether the national deals with this issue or not, is there an end in sight? And does this, one way or the other, might this cost them the ticket come 2023, if it's not being dealt with? Okay. A quick one, corrections for that matter is that the party did submit, based on the federal high court ruling, the name of IFA in Shukuo-D as the candidate of the PDP. So it is not backhand, it's not in contention. For now, until a superior court speaks otherwise, IFA in Shukuo-D is the authentic candidate of the PDP. Now, that is on one hand. You look at the issue of the court of appeal decision that asks that the matter, the court predict that the client issues the authentic flag of the party, having been shut listed by INAG, that it should be retried and visited. One, the court of appeal made two significant decisions. First was that it should be retried. Secondly, that the federal high court, the chief justice of the federal high court should reassign the matter for the trial to a different judge. So now, when you look at this, you see them going back to the drawing board. The implication is that the party is sparkling to be time, and may not be time, because everything about substitution of candidates, just for new fresh primaries, will be closing within this middle of August. Now, this is August, when the party just have about two weeks, or they're about to sort itself out. Now, the INAG has proceeded to the Supreme Court to appeal the court of appeal decision asking for a retrial of the earlier decision of the federal high court in Abakaleke. Now, before the Supreme Court to sit on the matter, to decide whether to uphold the prayers of INAG, or to throw them back again to give back into the court of appeal earlier ruling that the matter should be retried, the whole window for substitution would have been foreclosed. Does this mean that we're going to see... If it continues the way it is going, the party may not have a candidate for the 2020 elections. Exactly, because I was going to say, we know that in the midst of all of this, we see a criss-crossing, an exodus of sorts. Might that also happen because of the symbrogal? Do we see people leaving the PDP if they do not get a fair hearing on this matter going forward? Of course, people have started leaving the party already. Of course, from my intelligence, some of the party supporters have already started leaving the party. Why do I say so? Because if you had read in the news recently, you would have seen some of them decamping to other parties, some to APC, some to ABGAS, to other parties in the state. Now, what this means is that some of them, who feel they may not have the patience to go through the litigation from the local court again to court of appeal to the Supreme Court, some of them feel that the best thing they can do is to find a candidate in another party to support. And some have started moving already. That is already on course. What you should take away from this is that a party may have a Zafra and reverse scenario that played out in the APC in 2019. And the two candidates, I'm telling you from this gov. shift ticket, seem very desperate and sure that the party gets to that level. That is the truth. And that is the fact about what is going on in Ebon. Well, I want to say thank you. Charles Otu is a political analyst and he joined us from Ebon. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. We'll keep our eyes on this story as it develops. Thank you. All right. Well, it's time for my take before we wrap up the show tonight. I'd like to give you my take. Here's my take. It's interesting that in 2022 we're still talking about solutions to the problem of terrorism. Yes, terrorism is not something that you can beat in one day. Terrorism is not a fight that we can fight in one day because it is not a usual warfare. It's a guerrilla warfare. So I'm wondering, last year the UAE helped us by getting the people who decided to fund terrorism. They helped us out to give us the least of those people. What happened to the list? Also, recently the BBC has come up with a documentary going into the nooks and the crannies of this country to find out what is at the bottom of the terrorism that has been taking the lives of innocent Nigerians, ripping mothers from their children, killings and touch rings. And of course, even Nigerians who have no money, crowdfunding to get their loved ones out from the kidnappers den. But our government has decided that they will fight the BBC, that they will fight daily trust. These are journalists who have come from outside the country talking about the BBC to help us get to the bottom of our problems. So I ask Nigerians, help me. Why is it that outsiders are most interested and place more value on human lives than the governments that we have in place? Of course, Mr President has told us that he's done his best, but my question is, is your best good enough, Mr President? Again, I ask the government of the day, why are we still thinking like we do not know what to do to deal with the issue of insecurity? Is the President's hands tied? What is happening to our security officials? We said we needed Turkano jets. See, the Turkano jets are here. What are we doing with it? How long will we keep losing innocent lives of Nigerians? For a government who really, really wanted to govern us, Mr President, you tried so many times to be President of this country. And finally, you were given the opportunity. Is this what you wanted for us at the beginning? Is this what you want to leave at the end as a legacy? I'm wondering, how long will we stay in this place wondering, gnashing our teeth and hoping that somebody will come save us? I'm guessing that our leaders should be our saviour. Okay, people are saying we want to impeach Mr President, and some others are saying, oh, well, it's political. Where does the life of the average Nigerian come in? I'd like to say, Kadaria Ahmed put out a statement, a very long one, talking about the fact that the Nigerian media is glorifying terrorism. But how do we make sure that we get to the solutions of our problems if we cannot tell the story behind the problem of terrorism? So I'll leave it to you Nigerians. Think act wisely. Elections are around the corner. If you are campaigning for somebody, find out where that person stands on this issue of insecurity. Maybe that might inform who you vote for. I'm Mary Annicole. This is my take.