Surprises have been following the steps of Mr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, a national chairmanship aspirant of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), since he started his campaign to occupy the party's foremost seat come March 2008.
We know from inside the campaign organization of the Champion newspapers publisher that it has been a season of rejections in most of the states his campaign train visited, contrary to some media reports.
The Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu campaign organization because of the influence their principal wields in PDP and by extension in Nigeria, had hoped to have a smooth sail in most of the PDP controlled states, but surprisingly, the reverse is the case so far.
"It got so bad that our proposed visit to Rivers State had to be postponed to smoothen things first" the source volunteered. "Chairman" the source continued "is perceived by many as Obasanjo's right hand man,so they want to embarass Obasanjo by rejecting him".
Mr. Iwuanyanwu, from Atta in Ikeduru local government Area of Imo State, have been a constant name in politics in Nigeria, since 1989. In 1991, he contested to be the presidential candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention(NRC) and was almost clinching the post when the Ibrahim Babangida military government cancelled the result and banned him and others from politics for that period.
In 1998 when the Abdulsalami Abubakar's military administration lifted the ban on politics, Iwuanyanwu joined the then All Peoples Party, now All Nigeria Peoples Party(ANPP),but had to defect to PDP to feather his business nest,he is also a civil engineering contractor.
In 2002, in the heat of the Igbo presidency agitations,Iwuanyanwu as the chairman of the Ohaneze Ndi Igbo, Igbo presidency commmittee,used this position to sucessfully campaign for a second term for the then President Olusegun Obasanjo,he subsequently,also campaigned unsucessfully for a third term for Obasanjo. Ohaneze Ndi Igbo is the apex socio-cultural organization of Igbos. Since then, some powerful elements in Ohaneze have been working to render him politically impotent.
The Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu campaign organization have not responded to our request for comments at the time of posting this report.
