Protest trail PDP chairmanship candidates' list

The release of the list of the candidates by the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP], for the December local government election in Abia state has drawn the ire of many of the candidates and their supporters, who described it as far from being transparent.

Reacting to the final list released by the party last weekend, some of the aspirants who pleaded anonymity, questioned the rationale behind the list after leadership of the party has assured that the primaries would be free, fair and devoid of imposition and impunity.

They described as double standard, a situation in which names emerged from the local government government where the primary did not take place. 

I am sorry for PDP; after they told us that the primary will be free and fair, they turned around and imposed candidates . If they knew they have preferred candidates, why did they ask some of us to pay for the nomination form, only for them to publish the names oft their candidates" said one of them.

Another aggrieved aspirant said, PDP has not learned any lesson, may be they want what happened in 2015 to repeat. Everybody knows that the primary did not hold in many of the local governments areas, but now we know that they were only deceiving us"

In spite of the reported case of violence, snatching of official delegates' list and non-conduct of the primary in most centers, the PDP had announced the names of its local government chairmanship flag bearers to beat the deadline set by the state electoral body.