By DADA AYOKHAI
The hitherto zoning and consensus arrangement of the people’s Democratic party, PDP, in Etsako East LGA which conferred an advantage on one of the chairmanship aspirant has been jettisoned.
The party stakeholders said all the prospective aspirants will have to undergo a primary and whoever emerges victorious will fly the the PDP flag in the coming LG poll.
One of those most hit by the reversal order is Hon. Benedicta Ebuehi, a former vice chairman of the Etsako East council area who later became the council chairman following the suspension of the former council chairman.
Hon. Ebuehi hails from Okpekpe in North Ivie clan of the local government.
Although she did not meet the party criteria by winning her ward for the party during the house of Assembly election, she got a soft landing to contest for the number one seat in the local government due to her closeness to some PDP leaders in Edo north senatorial district.
According to some of the party leaders, the decision to discard the zoning arrangement out of the window and replace it with a more pragmatic and realistic mode of producing eligible and credible party candidates was necessitated by two intertwined factors.
The first factor affected Okpella where the opposition APC won all four wards during the state assembly election, leading to the withdrawal of the chairmanship slot from it.
The other compelling reason was that the sale of the nomination form was made open to all aspirants and it would, therefore, amount to shifting the goalpost in the middle of the game to ask such aspirants who have laboured to procure the forms to “sacrifice” their ambitions on the altar of sticking to whatever zoning arrangement that was previously put in place
Although the party leaders recognizes the rancour that often trails the aftermath of party primary, they, however, admitted that it remains the best method of producing a widely accepted candidate.
With the jettisoning of the zoning arrangement, the field is wide open for the other aspirants to test their popularity at the primary .
One of them, Hon. Moses Agukor, recently declared his intention to contest for the seat of Etsako East council chairman. The native of Weppa Wanno, Hon. Agukor is not a pushover in the politics of the local government
He was a commissioner in the dissolved cabinet of Gov Obaseki and was also able to win his ward for the party in the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections as well as the March 18 state assembly election. This particular feat has put him in a premium position ahead of the primaries.
In the coming days, the aspirants will attempt to outdo each other while also trying to woo the party delegates to look in their direction
