2027: Ebonyi NRM accuses ex-guber candidate of using party to seek APC patronage

Ebonyi State chapter of the National Rescue Movement, NRM, has accused its 2023 governorship candidate, Comrade Tony Usulor of attempting to use the structure of the party to negotiate political relevance ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The party, in a statement issued on Monday by its state chairman, Hon. Ogodo Stanley, on behalf of the executive officers, stakeholders and members, dismissed Usulor’s claim that he had collapsed the NRM structure in Ebonyi into the APC.

Ogodo declared that Usulor had abandoned the activities of the party since the 2023 general elections and consequently lacked the political or organisational mandate to speak for or claim ownership of the NRM in the state.

“You cannot collapse what you abandoned,” Ogodo said, insisting that Usulor’s status as the party’s former governorship candidate did not confer perpetual authority over its structures, membership or leadership.

According to him, Usulor had not participated in the party’s activities since 2023, while the NRM had continued to reorganise its structures, conduct membership updates and carry out internal elections in accordance with its established processes.

The chairman said the former candidate could not credibly claim to have collapsed a structure whose current leadership he could not identify.

“Since after the 2023 election, Usulor has not participated in our party activities.

“We have conducted elections and put in place our structures at the state, local government and ward levels.

“He does not know the current executive members at these levels,” Ogodo stated.

He described as political fiction any claim that Usulor had moved or collapsed the NRM structure into the APC, stressing that the NRM was an independent political organisation governed by its constitution and recognised leadership.

Ogodo further accused Usulor of attempting to deploy the name of the NRM as a bargaining instrument in his political engagement with the APC-led government.

The NRM chairman, however, acknowledged Usulor’s constitutional right to defect to another political party but maintained that such a decision remained personal and could not be presented as the takeover or dissolution of NRM structures in Ebonyi State.