PPA Seeks Issue-Based Campaigns

The Chairman of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in Abia, Chief Emeka Onuoha, has called on other political parties to focus their campaigns on issues and not on persons.

Onuoha, who made the appeal in Umuahia at a meeting of political parties at the state police command, said it was one of the ways to avoid heating up the polity in the forthcoming polls.

“We will suggest that political parties should address pressing issues of under development and how they will solve them rather than attacking personalities.

The chairman said the April elections in Abia would only be credible if the right things were done.

He appealed to the commissioner to practicalise the theory of level playing ground, which he had promised other parties in Abia, stressing that the ruling party in the state muzzled the opposition.

Onuoha accused the administration of using public facilities like the stadia and parks to carry out its campaigns, “while others were quarantined to roads,’’ which he said, was capable of causing conflict.

He further accused them of removing and de-facing the campaign posters of other political parties.

“We are appealing that the administration allows us access to public facilities to hold our campaigns. This is the only way we can say that election is a friendly contest.”

The Chairman of ANPP, Chief Agbai Cassidy, said the marginalisation of other groups was not new, adding that PPA was reaping from the fruit it sowed while in power in the state.

Earlier, the Commissioner of Police, Mr Bala Hassan, said the meeting was to solicit their cooperation to make the state hold a violence-free and fair election.

The meeting was also attended on Monday by Abia Resident Electoral Commissioner, Austin Okoji and NOA State Director, Ngozi Uduma.