2027: Odii Not Quitting Ebonyi Governorship Race, Says Campaign

 Chief Ifeanyi-Chukwuma Odii, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Ebonyi for the 2027 election, has no plans to withdraw from the race, his campaign organisation has said.

 

Mr Darlington Onwe, the Ebonyi PDP Publicity Secretary, gave the assurance in a statement issued on behalf of the campaign organisation in Abakaliki on Monday. He urged the public to disregard any report suggesting that Odii had pulled out of the contest.

 

According to Onwe, Odii has neither announced nor contemplated withdrawing from the race.

 

The statement also dismissed claims that an existing zoning arrangement binds political parties and voters in the state ahead of the 2027 governorship election.

 

Onwe said no such arrangement is recognised by the Constitution or the Electoral Act. He added that there is no formal agreement, resolution or body enforcing zoning in Ebonyi.

 

While political groups were free to advocate zoning and rotation, he said, such positions could not stop qualified candidates from contesting elections.

 

He cited Sections 177 and 40 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which provide respectively for the qualifications for the office of governor and for citizens' right to freedom of association.

 

Odii, he said, emerged as the PDP candidate through the party's internal processes and is entitled to contest the election.

 

Onwe argued that the state's electoral history showed that governorship contests had always drawn candidates from different senatorial zones.

 

He recalled that in the 2023 governorship election, Gov. Francis Nwifuru, now the incumbent, polled 199,131 votes; Odii scored 80,191 votes; and Prof. Bernard Odoh of the All-Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) got 52,189 votes, according to results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

 

He said earlier elections had also featured candidates from all three senatorial zones, adding that Ebonyi voters had never been restricted to candidates from any particular zone.

 

Rather than zoning, Onwe said, the focus should be on presenting voters with competing programmes and allowing them to make informed choices at the polls.

 

He said Odii's campaign had already presented its development agenda, "A Promise of Possibility (Anyị G'Emeya)".

 

According to the campaign, the agenda is built on 12 pillars covering agriculture, employment, healthcare, education, social welfare and human capital development.