From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC), Enugu State chapter took disturbing dimension, yesterday, when stakeholders, comprising former senate president, Ken Nnamani, Foreign Affairs Minister, Geofrey Onyeama, and former governor, Sullivan Chime among others stormed the party’s secretariat to demand removal of the state Chairman, Ugochukwu Agballah.
Other stakeholders in the delegation that met with Abdullahi Adamu, the party’s national chairman, include J. O. J. Okoloagu, Ayogu Eze, Gbazuagu Nweke Gbazuagu, Eugene Odo, Ifeanyi Nwoga, Onyemuche Nnamani and Osita Okechukwu.
In their prayers from the petition submitted to the national leadership of the party, Nnamani said: “We urge the NWC to immediately save the party in Enugu State from total collapse by removing Agballa from office and in his place put a caretaker chairman who should be someone not within the present state executive committee.
“The party still stands a chance of remedying the situation and being competitive in the general election. While thanking you for managing the party to an enviable height, we hope this petition will receive the urgent attention needed to save APC in Enugu State,” they said.
Adding further, the delegation said: “The party in Enugu State recorded an unprecedented milestone of reinvention of itself during the last membership registration exercise. The party rebounded in goodwill as membership soared and the party continued on this positive trend into the ward and local government congresses and was cruising towards taking away the shine from the ruling party in the state.
“A major crack, however, emerged during the state congress, when Agballah was surreptitiously manoeuvred into the party to become its chairman to the bewilderment and vehement opposition of a majority of the party members who knew his antecedents as a person and in Enugu State politics.
“The chairman may wish to recall that as chairman of APC National Peace and Reconciliation Committee that Chime, immediate past governor of Enugu State had led a protest of stakeholders/elders of Enugu State ghapter of the party against the emergence of Agaballah as state chairman on two grounds: non-membership of Agballah and controversial and irregular process of his emergence as state chairman.
“Agballah was given the benefit of the doubt by a few leaders of the party and issued a certificate of return. It was felt by those few leaders that the party needed to change direction at all costs and have a vibrant leader who could finally unite the party in the state,” leader of the delegation, Nnamani read from the petition to the party’s leadership.
Enumerating Agballah’s sins, the delegation noted that: “unfortunately, the new chairman did not waste time in proving those majority leaders who opposed his emergence correct in their warning. He immediately systematically dismantled the core of the party structure and brought in his followers.
“He insulted the party leaders, including those few who supported his emergence, sidelined them completely in matters affecting the running of the party in the state and has been operating as a sole administrator or indeed a dictator! The result has been the withdrawal from the party of a growing number of important leaders and members,” they lamented.
However, Agballah, reacting, described those calling for his removal as members of APC in Abuja and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu.
He said they were parasites that never made any financial contribution to the party in the state.
“I do not want to return two per cent of the total votes cast that is why I have relocated to the wards and polling booths. Nevertheless, if the national leadership wants me to abandon the wards and relocate to Abuja and run the party from the office of the all powerful PA to the Minister of Foreign Affairs or from the office of Osita Okechukwu or Ken Nnamani at Aso Villa or from Markurdi in Benue State, the matrimonial home of Ginika Tor, I will gladly do so.
“To work with these men is to hand over our winning strategies to PDP as President Muhammadu Buhari found out belatedly in 2019 to his utter regret for it is only in Enugu that APC returned two per cent. PDP knows we are sending them out of Lion Building in 2023….,” he said.