The Director, Publicity Committee on President Jonathan Campaign Organisation in Anambra State, Chief Joe-Martins Uzodike, has decried the campaign of calumny against immediate past Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, describing it as a veiled attack on President Goodluck Jonathan.

Uzodike, who was the Director of Willie Obiano campaign Organisation and the immediate Special Adviser, Political to the Anambra State Governor, stated this in Awka yesterday while addressing youths and traders rooting for the re-election of President Jonathan.

The former Commissioner for Information and Culture in Anambra State, who said he was dismissed by Gov. Obiano for supporting Jonathan, regretted the death of the late Biafran warlord, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. He described Ojukwu as a clearing house that everybody ran to in times of conflict in APGA and declared that APGA died with the death of the iconic Igbo leader.

Uzodike frowned at what he described as the calculated attempt to tarnish Obi’s hard-earned reputation through the circulation of a paid documentary film in some selected media houses in the state. He said such action is a further attempt to show that the State Government is not supporting Jonathan’s re-election bid.

Uzodike said that Obi can be described as one man that made it possible for the Obiano government to come on board in Anambra. He said now that he has done his bit and they have chased him out of the party, they should realise that it is bouncing back on them.

According to him, “This action is an attempt to make sure Jonathan doesn’t win here. All the time, there have been speculations that the government and APGA do not support Jonathan but this is one clear point where they have manifestly shown that they are not supporting Jonathan because, if Peter Obi is not contesting election and he is the third in command among those working for President Jonathan, and you are trying to bring him down here, what it means is that you are trying to tell the world that people working for Jonathan are not human beings.

“This is a further attempt to show that Anambra people are not supporting Obi. Obi left the party last year; why is it that now that President is gunning for re-election that they have decided to present him in a very bad light?

“The so called documentary against Peter running in different media houses today was produced in Anambra Broadcasting Service station by a Deputy Director who is well known in the circle though I don’t want to mention his name here. The documentary was supervised by the National Chairman of a party and endorsed by the government. It is being played three to six times a day in ABS TV on the instruction of the government. This is simply another way of campaigning against Jonathan because there is no campaign against Peter because Peter is not running for an election. The target cannot be Peter, it is beyond him and that’s why I say that I agree that the State Government is not working for Jonathan.

“I call on Anambra State Government to look beyond what they are doing. I accept that the governor might not know what they are doing because he is a political neophyte. They said I was sacked because I called Governor Obiano a political neophyte and I stand by my word because a neophyte is a new person. I maintain that Obiano is a neophyte and any attempt by him to assume what he is not is part of the problem. My calling him a neophyte is not meant to degrade him, after all he is my friend, brother and school mate, but the truth is that if he assumes what he is not, it will lead him to problem and that is what is happening now.

“For now, I’m not talking about my relationship with the Anambra State Government; that one is a matter for another time. I will discuss why I left government after the election. In one of the pages of a newspaper, the government writing through a fictitious name referred to me as a mole in Obiano’s government. That is ridiculous, to say the least; that a Director General of a campaign that brought up a government can be called a mole in a government he enthroned. As the DG of the Obiano campaign, I am one man who can stand up and say the history of the government and knows everything about the government, so how can I be a mole? A mole to who? I’ve said it before that I will not be a party to anything that will destroy this government consciously, because to do that, I will be held liable. As for now, Peter Obi and I are being held liable for whatever Anambra people are experiencing under Obiano. That’s why I will not consciously come out and say anything about the government because if I point one finger against them, four are pointing at me.

“But events will lead to my coming out full blast on this issue because if Peter Obi, a man who made it possible for this government to be, can be attacked and ridiculed, who am I? I will tell the history of the government and the campaign because I have the records and the accounts and I know that no other person put in one kobo in the campaign fund outside Peter Obi. People who collected money went with the money and never accounted to the campaign organisation. The register of the money spent on the campaign is kept and they are all money from one source – Mr. Peter Obi.

“I also don’t believe that Omambala people who were given the opportunity to produce the governor are all bad people but what we are experiencing here is that an external influence that is deadly is hovering around Obiano and if he doesn’t take care, he will land into a problem he cannot wriggle out of.

“I’m telling anybody trying to denigrate the person of Peter Obi to desist because they cannot gain anything from that. Anambra people are already getting saturated and fed up with what they are seeing and if the governor doesn’t know it well, I’m telling him that all these are counter- productive on his government. I don’t want the government to be perceived as being ungrateful though it is manifest already and at the right time, we shall address other issues.

“It is clear they chased Peter out of APGA but good players don’t stay idle especially when you are talking about a man that has been given papal imprimatur. The Pope has given Obi Papal Knight and the entire Catholic Church in Nigeria has given him an award while the Anglican Dioceses has individually honoured him because he is one man who attended all the synods that were done in the South-East. After the entire honour, it is we in Anambra, the party he built, that is doing this now. I maintain that APGA died with the death of Ojukwu because Ojukwu was a clearing house. Any person who had any problem would run to Ojukwu and he would call whoever to order. Today, there is no other person to run to. Victor Umeh is a personification of everything. Now, he has converted the governor, who ought to be the leader of the party and is supposed to be on top of Victor, he has made him the BOT Chairman. By being a BOT member, he automatically falls under Victor, so the idea of calling him a leader doesn’t work because if you are a leader, you cannot accept to be a cook in the same house you are leading. BOTs of all parties are under the Chairman of the party. That is why the Constitution of the party says in Section 25(3) that once you are a governor, you cannot accept any other position in the party but Umeh hurriedly went to the convention and removed that clause and said you can be this and that.”

On the plight of the internally displaced persons as the election draws closer, Uzodike called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow such people to vote without any restriction. He said the number of Igbo people who returned home from their base in the North should be aggregated and allowed to vote presently in their states of domicile.

On the preparedness of INEC for the election, Uzodike called on the commission to discard the use of card readers because of possible malfunction on the Election Day. He declared that the presidential election is a serious business that should not be toyed with by disenfranchising people.

•Photo shows Gov. Obiano and Chief Umeh in a jubilant mood.