The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Abia APGA

  • Otti picks Abia APGA gov ticket

    Dr Alex Otti has won the governorship ticket of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia State.

    Otti, who garnered 574 votes out of 619 accredited delegates during the governorship primary of the party in Umuahia at the weekend, won the election in which he was the sole candidate.

    His opponent had chosen to hold a parallel primary.

    The returning officer and national welfare officer of the party, Carol Dike Okoroafor said the exercise was devoid of any rancor.

    Otti thanked party members for once more reposing implicit confidence on him like they did in 2015, assuring their votes and mandate will not be stolen again.

     

  • Abia APGA and framing of Catholic Church

    The reports came in quick succession, announcing that the revered Catholic Church may have abdicated its role of spiritual guidance to make a hurried foray into the landmine of politics. Not as an impartial arbiter but as a biased player and partisan ally, openly aligning with and firing from the frontlines for the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia State. It was a very well packaged dummy and sold very brilliantly that even the very elect and the very intelligent were almost deceived.

    Sample these reports:

    “A group, Catholic Network of Nigeria (CNN) staged a protest weekend in Bende, Bende Local Govt Area of Abia State, calling for the change of the Justices of the Court of Appeal, Owerri, Imo State. According to the group which is sympathetic to the opposition All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), it has no confidence in Owerri Appeal Court Judges. The placards-carrying group comprising mainly of youths and women alleged that some judges at the Owerri Appeal Court are very close to the tribunal Judges that handled cases from Abia,” – Vanguard, Mon, November 30, page 16.

    And another:  “A group known as Catholic Network of Nigeria has passed a vote of no confidence on the yet-to-be inaugurated Court of Appeal panel in Owerri that would handle the appeal by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, Dr. Alex Otti against Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s victory. The group who staged a protest yesterday in Bende also called on the Chief Justice of the Federation, National Judicial Council and President Muhammadu Buhari to redeploy the appeal court judges at the Owerri Judicial Division. The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions such as, “Catholics are Against Injustice; The Church is Our Hope, etc”, Authority Newspaper, Fri, Nov. 27, page 10.

    And now the rebuttal: “ press release from the Catholic Diocese of Umuahia – Church and Society: The attention of Catholic Diocese of Umuahia has been drawn to the publication in the Vanguard newspaper of 30th November, 2015, page 16, on the purported protest in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State calling for change of the Appeal Court Judges in Owerri. For purposes of keeping records straight, we state as follows:

    1. The Catholic Network of Nigeria does not exist in the Catholic Diocese of Umuahia.
    2. The Catholic Diocese of Umuahia is not partisan and does not involve herself in any partisan political activity.
    3. The purported protest as published in the Vanguard of 30th November Nov, 2015 page 16 did not take place in Corpus Christi Parish Bende and we do not know any catechist by name Ambrose Udensi.
    4. Finally, we state categorically that the Catholic Diocese of Umuahia dissociates herself from the Catholic Network of Nigeria (CNN) and the purported group protest in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State calling for a change of Appeal Court Judges in Owerri.Signed: Rev. Fr. Dr. Paschal Okey Opara, Coordinator JDPC (Church and Society Department)”

    For all intent and purposes, the aim of APGA in this latest plot is to incite the Catholic Church against the Abia State Government and destroy the existing cordial relationship between the church and the state. This is a dangerous trend that must be checkmated. But, before then, the questions arise: why would the men of APGA in Abia State get so desperate to the point of exchanging their souls and conscience to frame the church of God? Why would they treat God and the things of God with such disdain? Why framing and blackmailing no other group but the Catholic Church, the Mother of all churches and the leader of Christendom?

    The question continues:  Is it the necessity of a situation where all is fair, as in war and love? Are they driving the Machiavellian thesis of the end justifying the means? Must APGA apply all tactics, whether fair or foul, to win the war? Must they win this war against natural providence – against the cosmic order of cause and effect? Must Alex Otti be governor of Abia State by blackmailing the Catholic Church? Why pass a vote of no confidence on a body that is not yet constituted? Why denigrate the judiciary and purporting same to be the will of the holy Catholic Church? Why such blasphemy all in the name of power struggle?

    These questions, precisely, have bordered all men of goodwill in the last couple of days. Since  after the Umuahia Catholic Diocese addressed the press last Wednesday and openly disowned the group  and absolved the church of any complicity, it has become obvious  that the group is  a contraption by desperate politicians whose intentions is to use the revered name of the Catholic Church to settle political scores. The rebuttal by the Catholic Church clarified that the quoted reports in the two national dailies were certainly not the voice of the church, that somebody was on a mission of mischief to drag the name of the church to the mud.

    But, by playing such a ruse, Abia APGA has taken ambition too far. Their aim is to pull the wool over the eyes of the discerning public. But, they could not have succeeded because the world knows the Catholic Church to be a non-partisan organization that stands only for social justice, good governance and the progress of society. The Catholic Church respects the rule of law and as a responsible institution it cannot be instigated into denigrating the sanctity of the judiciary.

    The church has an age-old and time-honoured reputation that desperate politicians of APGA in Abia State couldn’t have smeared.

    Indeed, the entire scenario calls from some emphasis. We must re-emphasize that the Catholic Church is a non-partisan organization that has interest only in ensuring an effective democratic government through prayers, admonition, counseling and voting for the right candidates during election period. The issue of politicians challenging election results in the courts has nothing to do with the church as it is unlawful for the church to try to determine what the courts do. The Catholic Church as a responsible entity respects the sanctity of the judiciary.  In the Catholic Church, the authority to pronounce the will of the church lies on the Bishop within a given Diocese of the church. It is clear that these faceless group are working on their own and outside of the authority of the Catholic Church.

    Truthfully, those who are involved in this campaign of calumny have not represented the Catholic Church. They are working for their own selfish interest. But, we must warn that the name of the revered Catholic Church or any other religious body for that matter should not be used as an instrument of political propaganda. This could be very disastrous for the country.  The church in Nigeria and all well-meaning Catholics all over the world must condemn this devilish act in its entirety and defend the sacred institution of God. We must also urge the Chief Justice of Nigeria, the Appeal Court and the entire judiciary to ignore the ranting of this faceless group.

     

    • Adindu is Chief Press Secretary to the Abia Governor.

     

  • Abia APGA’s onslaught against judiciary

    The judiciary is sacred. It is to democracy what the vestry is to the holy temple.  It is the sanctuary of democracy, the fulcrum of life of any civilized society.  I think that somebody, and this is not sarcastic, must volunteer to teach this freshman course to the leaders of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) party in Abia State.  We may have been committing a very fatal error to presume that they know or that they should have known. Ignorance could be a valid claim to innocence in these matters.  We forget that, as Amos Alcott noted, to be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

    Every civilized society and every civilized person or group respect the sanctity of the judiciary. The judiciary as one of the three arms of government is so crucial and critical to the social contract that its independence cannot be negotiated.  The ability to interpret the law and dispense justice accordingly remains the responsibility of the judiciary and that is why it is the last bastion of hope of the common man.  The judiciary exists not only to check the excesses of the executive arm and the legislature but to check and control the society. It exists to control and direct the activities of man and, in that spirit, we avoid acting in contempt of the court.

    It is from this premise that every well-meaning Nigerian must decry the campaign of calumny mounted by APGA against the chairman and members of the Abia State Election Petition Tribunal.  Since the judgment of the tribunal in the petitions of the National and House of Assembly elections and the verdict of the Owerri Appeal Court where APGA went to seek for extension of time to present more witnesses, the party literarily went gaga against the honourable jurists of the Abia tribunal. In a well-orchestrated campaign, both in the print, electronics and on other channels, the party has accused the jurists of having been bribed and compromised to divert justice in favour of the PDP.

    The height of this campaign of character assassination was the call by APGA for the jailing of the judges of the Abia Election Tribunal. It has been a sheer irony for a party which had earlier expressed an unflinching faith in the judiciary as a citadel of justice to turn around and launch such disparaging campaign not just against the jurists but against the institution of the judiciary, simply because their canvassed wheel of justice (which they have been waiting for) doesn’t seem to be swinging   in their favour.

    Let’s sample the aspersions of Abia APGA against the tribunal.  In a full page advertorial published on page 41 of The Nation of Friday, October 16, and personally signed by Reverend Ehiemere as the chairman of APGA, he declared as follows: “Huge sums of money in form of gratification have exchanged hands between the PDP leadership in the state and cronies of the justices. Consequently, some of the judges have been responding in line with the dictate of the lucre as evidenced in the current dismissing of all petitions filed by our party against the PDP candidates. The bribe funds, we understood, were delivered to the judges outside the country and through proxies in order to leave no traces”.

    In another full-page advertorial titled: Abia Election Petition Tribunals; The Height of Travesty of Justice, published on page 47 of The Nation of the same date, the party wrote: “There should be no space for corrupt judges in the present Nigeria. It is not enough to just retire them, they must be tried and if found guilty, jailed or even shot to death as the people of Ghana are asking their president to do”.

    On Sunday, October 18, in another full-page advertorial published on page 10 of The Nation APGA fired again: “In the last few weeks, suspicious but serious moves involving the officials of the Abia State Government have been made across the borders of Nigeria to seek a possible and highly secretive way of compromising the judges either in cash or through the purchase of very expensive property.”

    The party continued again on Wednesday October 21, on page 39 and 40 to denigrate and malign the character and integrity of the tribunal. Their language is uncouth, derogatory and abusive and only projects a picture of a desperate people. Considering that there is still a window for APGA to seek further redress in the Appeal Court,  if it thinks that its petition has not be judiciously addressed, one could only conclude that their action in the last couple of days is intentional   to ridicule the hallowed institution of the Nigerian judiciary. If the party is convinced that it still has some claim to make, the right action should have been to proceed to the higher court which has the jurisdiction to vacate the judgment of the lower court rather than resort to uncivil and barbaric actions of name-calling and mudslinging.

    It is clear that the whole aim in the scenario is to tarnish the coveted image and reputation of the honourable jurists and cast aspersion on the credibility of the Nigerian judiciary. This, precisely, amounts to taking election gangsterism too far. And this does not portray us positively before the civilized global community. The party would also add salt to injury by calling out paid touts and street urchins to attempt to orchestrate an unrest purporting it to be a reaction to the judgment of the tribunal, the aim being to create an atmosphere of pandemonium and thereby portray the state to be in crisis over the rulings that was indisputably fair to all concerned.  Politics should not be this dirty and filthy and politicians should play it with some conscience.

    There is need for members of the Nigerian judiciary both the bar and the bench to rise up in condemnation of the attack that has been unleashed on members of the Abia tribunal and the denigration that has come to the way of the judiciary, no thanks to  the Abia  branch of APGA. There is a sense in which this smear campaign has a spiral link to how every other tribunal should or should not be treated. And this statement must be made unequivocally as a lesson to the Abia APGA. The court is a hallowed entity that should not be treated with disdain or held in such contemptuous manner that cast a bad image on our total outlook as a country. Somebody must call the party to order and reverse this flagrant descent to indecency.

    The people of Abia respect the rule of law and the impartiality of the judiciary and do believe that the judgments so far delivered by the tribunal are fair to all concerned.  Abians see the attack on the tribunal as transcending the borders of decency and sanity.  Nigerians owe a duty to uphold the sanctity of the judiciary.

     

    • Adindu is the Chief Press Secretary to Abia governor
  • Abia: APGA unveils cockerel magazine

    Abia: APGA unveils cockerel magazine

    The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Abia State chapter, has commenced the publication of a monthly magazine “Cockerel”

    A statement by Comrade Madu Chikwendu State Publicity Secretary of APGA said the name is taken from the iconic logo of the party which is a cockerel.

    According to Chikwendu, the 32 page magazine is a human interest magazine with a glossy cover and Inner on Bond paper, “It will be distributed regionally in the South East but its focus will be not only national but also international. It will also be available online,” he said

    On the rationale behind the unveiling of the magazine, Chikwendu said; “The motivation for Cockerel is really quite simple. Mass media is virtually non-existent in Abia state. The state run newspaper merely circulates a handful of copies amongst some government officials  whilst the government electronic media is the epitome of unprofessional practice which has been convulsing from repeated fines from the regulatory authorities.

    “Ironically these state owned media outlets have been the primary instruments of the consecutive PDP led governments for the perpetuation of oppression and mis-governance.

    “Inaccessibility of the major towns in Abia as a result of bad roads results in the late delivery of newspapers thereby discouraging Abians from reading. A tacit acknowledgement of the infectiveness of their media apparatus is the fact that government  fritters away huge amounts on private and federal media outlets.

    “Indeed following the runaway success of our radio programme APGA update, the ruling PDP has gone to create a copy cat programme now airing on Pacessetter FM Umuahia. APGA Abia is proud to set the pace and show the way for the caretaker government. Ours is a robust, innovative political party that will continue to set the by redefining opposition politics.”

    Speaking further in the statement, APGA’s publicity secretary said “in addition to the magazine the party is also set to launch more radio and TV programmes soonest.”

     

     

  • Abia APGA, PDP exchange words over thugs invasion of ballot papers inspection venue

    Counsel to the All Progressives Grand Alliance [APGA] governorship candidate in Abia State, Chief Ndionyenma Nwankwo, has alleged that thugs disrupted Wednesday’s inspection of ballot papers in Obingwa Local Government Area headquarters.

    Speaking with newsmen in Umuahia after the sitting of the tribunal, Nwankwo said that forensic inspection of the ballot papers used during the governorship poll in Obingwa was disrupted by political hirelings and thugs.

    Nwankwo said that a team of forensic experts were at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] in Obingwa for the inspection of the materials when the thugs invaded the venue.

    He said that the thugs snatched some ballot papers from a representative of INEC, who accompanied the forensic experts for the inspection, and tore them, daring the security operatives to challenge them.

    Nwankwo said, ‘’When we noticed that the place was no longer safe for us, because the thugs started chanting war songs, we quietly packed our machines and left in order to avert a violent attack on us.’’

    He said that Otti’s legal team had filed a motion at the tribunal, seeking an order to compel INEC to make the materials available for inspection at its headquarters in Umuahia.

    Nwankwo further alleged a collusion between INEC and the PDP ‘’to ensure that the inspection did not go on,’’ citing similar frustrations faced in previous attempts to inspect the electoral materials in the custody of INEC.

    “Up until now, Forms EC8 A-C are still with the Local Government Electoral officers. But the Electoral Act stipulates that they should be in the custody of the INEC headquarters seven days after the polls.”

    The APGA counsel said that the Electoral Act gives the petitioners unfettered access to all the materials used during the elections, and urged INEC not to impede the course of justice.

    However, the state secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP], Charles Esonu, debunked the allegation, saying that APGA did not follow the ruling of the tribunal.

    Esonu denied the fact that some hired thugs invaded the venue of the forensic inspection of electoral materials, saying that the APGA team failed to comply with the directive of the tribunal.

    “Instead of paying for the copies they wanted to inspect, they rather commenced photocopying the materials.”

    Meanwhile, the Chairman of the tribunal, Hon. Justice Usman Bwala, has adjourned hearing of the motion to Thursday, July 2.