By Engr. Yinusa Muhammad
1.The SDP National Working Committee (NWC) met on 15 May 2025 and appointed Senator (Dr.) Ugochukwu Uba as the Deputy National Chairman (South) at the NWC meeting presided over by the National Chairman. Afterwards, the spokesman of NWC, the National Publicity Secretary, issued a public statement on the outcome of the meeting.
2. Senator Ugochukwu Uba is a scholar, former public servant, and a politician from Anambra State, South East Zone. He was a former Director General and later Honourable Commissioner in Anambra State who later served as Distinguished Senator from 2003 to 2007 and later as Senior Lecturer at the University of Abuja till 2021. He holds a first-class BSc. degree and PhD. Degree in Political Science.
3. The positions of two Deputy National Chairmen (North and South) were first created in 2018 in the Social Democratic Party. The Deputy National Chairman (South), DNC-S, position had been monopolised by eminent personalities from the South West in persons of Professor Tunde Adeniran (March 2018 to Feb 2019) and Dr Olu Agunloye (Feb 2019 to February 2021). The Deputy National Chairman (North), DNC-N, position had been vacant since September 2020.
4. Although the DNC-S position had been vacant for over five years, Mr. Arinze Ekelem, the South East Zone Chairman of SDP did not show any interest in it or canvass for it over this period until his kinsman from Anambra State was appointed into the position, and immediately after, Mr Ekelem opened unwarranted attacks because he claimed that the position was reserved for him by Alhaji Sheu Gabam, SDP National Chairman.
5. In April 2021, Mr. Arinze Ekelem reported at the National Secretariat that Senator Annie Okonkwo of Anambra had sponsored him to assume the vacant DNC-S position, but when contacted, Senator denied the claim. The Senator was furious and cut off from him for almost a year.
6. In the wake of the National Primaries in 2022, the same Mr. Ekelem approached the Election Committee to announce his interest in the Deputy National Chairman position and was asked to choose between the South East Zonal Chairman and the DNC-S. He chose the Zonal Chairman position.
7. Senator Ugochukwu Uba, the newly appointed DNC-S, is in effect the “manager” of the South, including the South East Zone of which Mr. Arinze Ekelem is the chairman. Mr. Ekelem who is struggling to denigrate the new DCN-S now is same man who abdicated his job as Chairman of South East Zone for two and half years because, according to him, the National Chairman, Alhaji Gabam disappointed him and dumped him.
8. The newly appointed DNC-S, Senator Uba was the Secretary of the National Election Committee in April 2022, he a Member of the National Convention Committee also in June 2022, was the Chairman of the *National Presidential Technical Committee* of SDP in August 2022, and the Deputy Chairman of the SDP National Presidential Council in November 2022.
9. No one queried the validity of the SDP membership of Senator Ugochukwu Uba when he was holding various positions in the party, including when he was signing SDP Certificates of Return over the years. None, until Mr. Ekelem came in May 2025 with the stories that Senator Uba snatched the “DNC position reserved” for him for almost six years.
Dr. Yinusa Muhammad,
Member, Enugu SDP Stakeholders Group.