From Victor Nwegede, Abakaliki
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Saturday at Fatilami Park Abakaliki, conducted its governorship primary in Ebonyi and elected Bernard Nwonumara as its gubernatorial flag bearer in the State for the 2023 general election.
Nwonumara who polled 179 votes was declared the winner of the Ebonyi ADC gubernatorial ticket by the leader of the party's electoral committee, Deaconess Benedette Ozibo as he emerged unopposed in the exercise.
Izibo, with the Secretary of the electoral panel, Engr Andyson Obani and other members, congratulated Nwonumara for his landslide victory during the primary and expressed confidence that he would make the party proud by embarking on a serious campaign alongside various elected candidates to win massively at the 2023 polls in the state.
The Chairman, however, urged all the candidates of the party to be devoted to their campaign, saying that the party would offer committed candidates in their pursuit an unrestricted sponsorship to guarantee their success in the 2023 general elections.
In her words: "Today, following your election, we are charging you among other candidates who were elected and given the flags of the ADC to go and start their campaign.
"ADC will issue you the ticket because you are competent to contest and we don't want you to waste our ticket because if you can't fly it, you can return it to us, as other people still need it.
"Don't mess our ticket up, if you do, we won't take it lightly with you. And I want to inform you that ADC will sponsor some of you who emerged as our candidates in Ebonyi State to ensure your victory in the 2023 general elections.
"We have the Spartans, they are going sponsor 350 State House candidates in Nigeria, these are groups of the young professionals, ready to offer free sponsorship to you. We have another group of people that are going to sponsor 250 candidates for the House of Representatives, 50 people for the Senate and 10 persons for the gubernatorial position.
"So, we want Ebonyi State to be part of this program because if you divide it, you see more than 10 per state, will receive free sponsorship during the election. And I want to assure you as far as this exercise holds today, I will make sure that some of you who are committed get help from us, but you must show your commitment.
"We are going to give form to your state chairman, to give us a sort of estimate, of how you plan to run the election, if we check through it, and it is workable, you will be invited to come over for interviews. It's because we can't just give you money to go and contest when we don't know your proposal for a campaign to win the election."
Also speaking, the ADC Chairman in Ebonyi State, Comrade Jennifer O. congratulated the party's gubernatorial flag bearer and other candidates for their landslide victory in their respective primaries, noting that the peaceful atmosphere witnessed during the exercise was highly commendable.
She thanked Ebonyi Governor, Engr David Umahi for giving the opposition parties a level playground to run their political activities and programs without any form of attacks in the state.
In his part, the gubernatorial candidate, Bernard Nwonumara expressed joy over his victory and pledged four agenda including workers' welfare, job security, industrialisation and general security for all Ebonyians if emerged as the Chief Servant of the state in 2023.
"For workers' welfare, I will make sure that all the workers receive their salaries before the 16th of every month. I will make sure that any worker whose promotion is due, gets promoted. Anybody due for pension under my watch as the governor of Ebonyi State will receive it without delay.
"For job security of the youths, I will bring in foreign investors for industrialisation, so that our young people in Ebonyi State will be meaningfully engaged. We should think about why youths are agitating today, it is because of the lack of jobs. I believe strongly that as the incoming governor of Ebonyi State, any of our youths receiving N100,000 per month for his job can't move on and start agitation. But when they are not engaged to live meaningfully, they will continue the agitation. We are going to engage youths in our administration, giving them, a wide sense of belonging.
"I will link all our roads that are in Ebonyi to the neighbouring states like Benue, Cross River and others, and it must be motorable. When I become the governor, Ebonyi will turn it to ADC state and, you hear nothing like opposition.
"It's because our party is people's oriented, youths are dominantly our members, and I want to tell you that I'm here to make Ebonyi happy again. If you look at my poster, you see what I wrote: 'Enough Talk.' I urge all of us to be law-abiding, warm and focused because I'm going to make you proud," he pledged.
