Against the backdrop of the official release of the 2015 elections
timetable by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
one-time Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Chief
Chuka Odom, is set to declare an interest to contest the governorship
election in Imo State on the platform of the Peoples’ Democratic Party
(PDP).
The legal practitioner, who had been oiling his political machinery
through his Chuka Odom Foundation (COF), is said to be planning an
unprecedented campaign strategy during the campaigns, with the hope to
breaking the jinx of the leadership crisis in the PDP in the state.
The co-coordinator, COF, Chief Mike Ejeugwu, in a press release
yesterday, said Odom represents the hopes and aspirations of Imo people
who are “tired of politicians who make so much noise promising
everything but who end up delivering nothing.
“He is untainted and comes with little political baggage but huge political and administrative experience”, Ejeugwu noted.
He said the absence of inspirational leadership being experienced in
Imo State can be traceable to “wrong choice of leaders at every
election”, saying that the emergence of the likes of Chuka Odom is a
good and encouraging development.
Odom is not a neophyte in politics, having served mostly in Abia State
where he was a practising lawyer in the 90s and contributed to the
election of Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu in 1999. He served under the
administration in various capacities until 2007 when he was appointed
Minister of State in the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban
development and later redeployed to the FCT as Minister of State where
he served until the death of his principal, President Umaru Yar’Adua in
2010.
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