Did Ike Ekweremadu Deserve Vice President Ticket?

Ike Ekweremadu is about dumping the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), report understand.

Ekweremadu recently got the PDP ticket to represent Enugu West Senatorial district for the fifth time.

However, it appears that the 56-year-old lawyer and politician is dissatisfied with the treatment meted out to him by the PDP especially after the Port Harcourt primary election which produced Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate.

Sources say there is a general feeling that Ekweremadu has been sidelined by the PDP after Atiku’s emergence.

While condemning Ekweremadu’s alleged maltreatment, a Senator who craved anonymity said Ekweremadu would have made a better vice presidential candidate for the PDP.

“There is a clear grand conspiracy against Senator Ekweremadu and it is just unfair,” a source said. “The issue is not even the mishandling of the processes leading to the emergence of former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, as the running mate to PDP’s presidential candidate, in which the South East leaders were totally sidelined. The issue is a deliberate attempt to sideline the Senator in the emerging scheme of things within the party.

“I am not talking about him not being nominated as vice presidential candidate. In any case, he has shown more interest in restructuring and other key South East interests than in vice presidential ticket. In the discussions leading up to our consideration of the aspirants and eventual decision to give a block vote to Atiku, he always said that the South East should go for the substance than for sheer title.

“To show that the sidelining of Ekweremadu was deliberate, none of the key actors have even reached out to him. The announcement was made on Friday, but Obi only started moving round on Sunday, in the evening. And I did not see him move with the National Chairman or National Secretary. It would have been ideal for Obi, Prince Uche Secondus and some other senior party leaders to have flown into Enugu that Saturday to meet with South East leaders.

“Assuming Atiku heard that there was a subterranean effort to substitute him, wouldn’t he have since rushed home or even canceled his trip out of Nigeria that Saturday to address the matter? And was it too much for him or Uche Secondus to pick a phone to call Ekweremadu, especially given the role he has played in calming the angry South East party leaders?”