TELL Magazine

Exactly one week after Matthew Urhoghide, the senator representing Edo South senatorial district of Edo State at the National Assembly, and a founding member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the state dumped the party, another chieftain of the party, Kenneth Imansuangbon, has also taken a walk.
While Urhoghide announced his exit from the party at Senate plenary last Wednesday, citing “irreconcilable differences and squabbles within the PDP”, Imansuangbon, popularly called “Rice Man” because of his yearly philanthropic gesture of distribution of rice across the state during the yuletide season, announced his resignation from the PDP in a statement Wednesday morning.
In his personally-signed statement forwarded to his Esan South East ward 2, and local government chairmen, as well as the state chairman of the party, Tony Aziegbemi, the serial governorship contestant who described his sojourn in the PDP as “memorable”, did not however give reasons for his decision.
Recall that Imansuangbon had reluctantly stepped down from the governorship race to allow for the emergence of the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki, ahead of the 2020 governorship primary election of the PDP after the governor was denied a return ticket by his former party, the All Progressives Congress, APC. The proprietor of highbrow Pace Setters Schools, Abuja, had defected from the APC to the PDP to contest the governorship election, which he had been doing since 2007, but always succumbed to pressure to step down.
Imansuangbon, in his four-paragraph letter, stated that “Since 2009, in what was tagged the ‘Ewohimi Declaration’ where I had joined the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has remained a memorable journey for me, and I want to thank God almighty for his benevolence.
“The course of my political journey in the PDP had afforded me the opportunity to make great and wonderful friends and had shared great moments which I will cherish for a lifetime.
However, the reality of the moment has made it decisive that there comes a time in a man’s life when he has to move ahead. Consequently, therefore I hereby tender my resignation from the membership of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. Once again, I thank the entire leadership and body of the PDP”.
Though Imansuangbon has not announced his next move, it is strongly suspected that he may be heading for the Labour Party, LP.
There are also feelers in the polity that Senator Urhoghide, Chairman of, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, who is speculated to be interested in succeeding Obaseki, may similarly pitch his tent with the burgeoning Labour Party in the state to realize his ambition.
In his resignation letter read by the deputy senate president, Ovie Omo-Agege, who presided at plenary, Urhoghide said “I write to formally inform you and entire members of the PDP that I am resigning my membership of the party, effective immediately.
“My decision arose out of the negative political energy emanating at the moment from the irreconcilable differences and squabbles within the PDP at the national level, and especially in my dear state. These squabbles have spiked to the level that has made it impossible for someone who is a confirmed democrat to function and grow as I envisaged in my political journey
“This letter is fulfilling the promise I made to the leader of the PDP that I will consult and inform formally when, and if I decided to step out of the PDP. I am grateful to the party which yielded me the opportunity to achieve the mission of serving as a two-term Senator, which afforded me the opportunity to express myself, and in a way that I have been able to affect my senatorial district”.
Urhoghide said the opportunity had helped him to build lasting friendships within the national and state party hierarchy, and at the Senate, adding that he would draw on these friendships going forward. He, however, solicited prayer as he took the bold step in the belief that it was the purpose of the Almighty God in his interference in the affairs of men.