Innocent Eleogu 


By Tony Icheku 



The drama and intrigues in the race for the  Labour Party, LP chairmanship for Ikwuano LG moves to yet another dimension as earlier predicted possible winners have been dumped 


The race which earlier showed a neck-to-neck race between Prince Innocent Eleogu and Chief Ikechukwu Orunta has displayed a shocking element with Eleogu  fast fizzling out of the race, as Abia State Governor Alex Otti has a different idea of who emerges as LP Chairmanship candidate for Ikwuano 


Dailyledger.com.ng gathered that besides being a greenhorn in Ikwuano politics, Eleogu's participation Ikwuano LP affairs is limited to his ward in Ariam-Usaka. Indeed, he is seen as the arrow head of the clannish tilt and do or die  politics of 'Its Ariam-Usaka's turn' or the heavens must fall down. The introduction of such bitter dimension to Ikwuano politics ruffled feathers and distanced party stalwarts from his inordinate ambition.


The response to Eleogu's do or die politics ignited other reactions across the LG as Oboro clan which boasts of four wards to the two wards of other clans contends it ought to be calling the shots since politics is a game of numbers. In chief Ikechukwu Orunta, Oboro clan found a champion to push their case 


Orunta,  a businessman and staunch grassroots mobiliser and loyal partyman, held the aces when the consideration was for free and fair primary to select candidates for the polls 


However, Abia LP rising from an   enlarged stakeholders meeting of the Party, held at the residence of Gov. Alex Otti on Sunday, Sept 29,  2024 the part cited Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act 2022 which  states that all political appointees seeking to contest elections must resign from their appointed position at least 30 days prior to the date of nomination or party primary. 


The LP stakeholders equally resolved that candidates for the election would emerge through consensus rather than direct or indirect primary, Orunta's chances dimmed.


This new angle dimmed Orunta's chances as Eleogu mobilised the services of lobbyists and hangers on in the corridors of Abia Government House who boasted they would get him the endorsement of Abia State Governor Alex Otti.


Though yet to cut his teeth in Ikwuano's political terrain, Eleogu  is an unobtrusive moneybag with a deep pocket and runs a philanthropic foundation, thus he willing footed the bills, but the goods seems entangled in transit 


The lobbyists who boasted to get him  Otti's backing assured him he belongs to the elitist political class favoured by the governor, however sources close to Government House says his name is nowhere in the Ikwuano shortlist for consensus candidates being considered by Gov Otti and the party top leadership.