Former Labour Party spokesman in the 2023 presidential campaign, Kenneth Okonkwo, has blamed Governor Samuel Ortom for denying the Southeast the opportunity to fly the flag of the distressed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election.
Recall that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was pronounced the winner of the primary election of the party and became its presidential candidate.
However, Okonkwo said that the southeast was betrayed by Ortom who at the time was the governor of Benue State, by ensuring that he closed the door on the region and made it difficult for it to produce a Southeast candidate.
He noted that despite the region’s loyalty and support to the party, Ortom, as chairman of the Committee set up by the party to determine the zoning of its presidential ticket, failed to take a favourable decision information available to him that the zone had yet to produce a candidate in the party’s history.
Okonkwo further argues that Atiku had pledged to support the southeast region if the party zoned the presidential ticket to it but wondered by Ortom, whose committee was in the position to do so, refused and betrayed the region.
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For more, see ‘Global Square’ on The Sun, July 20, 2025.
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