The Nation Newspaper

Tag: APGA crisis

  • APGA of crisis

    APGA of crisis

    Crisis is not alien to any political party in any clime. It only confirms that politicians are human and do disagree. The difference between a political crisis and any impasse in other human settings, however, is the notion that politicians ought to possess more psychological and emotional absorption mechanisms than other folks to prevent their squabbles from getting into public glare.

    Such a notion tends to overrate politicians. As human beings, people in politics, like other beings, are susceptible to the vagaries of human dissensions and cantankerousness. This has been the reality over time. It happened before the nation’s independence in 1960, in the First, Second, and Third Republics. Under the current political dispensation, crises brew almost on daily basis among seekers of power.

    For the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the obvious signs of distress have been on the wall from the beginning. The party has become a House of Babel, a disunited political family battling with internal contradictions. From its inception to this moment, its leaders have been locked in a curious war of attrition.

    Today, two chieftains are laying claim to being the party’s national chairman. Sylvester Ezeokenwa, a lawyer, is backed by the party’s National Leader, Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo. But armed with a court judgment, Chief Edozie Njoku, a businessman, is disputing Ezeokenwa’s leadership. He has the backing of some of the founding chieftains, including Chief Chekwas Okorie, the party’s pioneer national chairman.

    Reconciliation is difficult in APGA where warring chieftains prefer to work at cross-purposes.

    The party shares the fate of the “structureless” Labour Party (LP), torn apart by the protracted crisis between Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa. It is reminiscent of the rift between Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa and his friend, Chief Michael Koleoso of the moribund Alliance for Democracy (AD).

    APGA has wobbled along caucuses and camps. The camps underscore the extent of polarisation. They do not mean well for each other. It is the pattern in the party. While each camp claims to be for the survival of the party, it is oblivious to the damage it is doing to its chances at the polls through intrigues, persistent conflicts, and antagonism.

    Read Also; Ex-soccer star, estranged wife bicker over mysterious death of two-year-old daughter

    APGA is now the second oldest party in Nigeria; only second to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having obtained a certificate of registration from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) around 2002. It has tried to weather the storm created by the nature of party politics in Nigeria and the style of its antagonistic leaders. The protracted internal crisis has stifled its growth, weakened its structures, and robbed it of victory in many elections in some states.

    Many chieftains have left APGA for other parties where they achieved their ambitions for power at different levels.

    There was justification for its birth, as rationalised by its founders.  There was no evidence to suggest that APGA was meant for all of Nigeria. Its founding fathers never pretended that they wanted to build a platform with a national outlook. The party’s root is the Southeast and the target was a platform that could offer a more sustaining opportunity for an Igbo man to contest for President. It appeared the idea then was to bring the entire Southeast under APGA so that the party and the region could be in a vantage position to negotiate at the centre.

    But that approach became its undoing. APGA became ‘APUGA,’ completely branded as an Igbo party meant for the Igbo, but also momentarily available for borrowing by members of other political parties in the Southeast and a few defectors beyond the region. That was how former Minister of State for Information, Labaran Maku, used the platform when he was denied the governorship ticket of his party in Nasarawa State.

    The founding fathers were assailed by a sort of complex, which made them to look for a father figure to hand over the party’s apparatus after labouring hard to form the party. Bubbling with charisma and carriage, the late Ikemba of Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu, accepted the invitation and became the party’s National Leader.

    Ojukwu was the idol of the Southeast; the legendary Biafra warlord who once led the Igbo through a three-year secession battle that shook Nigeria. But that was the end of the story.

    As the history of electoral politics has shown, Ojukwu never measured up to the reputation of an electoral asset. Although he joined the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) when he returned from exile and was made the party’s national vice chairman, his senatorial bid crumbled like cookies. In APGA, while some people leaned on him to win, victory eluded him when he aspired to rule post-civil war Nigeria.

    Some people holding the levers of federal power in the first eight years of civil rule in this Fourth Republic also misunderstood the rise of APGA as the second coming of Biafra and attempted to categorise it as a security risk. It was an erroneous perception. The civil war ended in 1970. But the suspicion has not fizzled out. It is inimical to national integration.

    Of course, the big parties then – the PDP, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and even AD – never wanted APGA to shine beyond Igbo land. In the elections, APGA was far behind as many parts of the Southeast, particularly outside Anambra State, rejected its candidates.

    During the 2003 polls, APGA only won 1.4 per cent of popular votes. The party managed to win two of the 360 seats in the House of Representatives; it could not win a seat in the Senate.

    Its presidential candidate, Ojukwu, had, politically speaking, lost the momentum. During the presidential election, he only won 3.3 per cent of votes. But no other party has been able to penetrate Anambra, its stronghold, during governorship elections in the post-Mbadinuju era. Although Dr. Chris Ngige was sworn in 2003, the stolen mandate was retrieved from the PDP and handed over to the legitimate winner, Peter Obi.

    Obi, who also became APGA leader, handed over to Willy Obiano, who handed over to Soludo, the incumbent. Obi later abandoned APGA for PDP. From PDP, he hurriedly left for LP with his band of social media warriors.

    Once any Anambra governor is sworn in, he becomes the alpha and omega of ‘APUGA’.

    Dramatically, fortune smiled on APGA in Imo State in 2011 when Chief Rochas Okorocha, assisted by Chief Martins Agbaso, was elected governor, polling 15 per cent more votes than former Governor Ikedi Ohakim. But, by 2013, the defector again jumped ship, teaming up with the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to later form the All Progressives Congress (APC). In 2018, APGA won a seat in the Senate in a by-election. In 2019, the party won seven seats in the House of Representatives. It was an improvement on its 2015 record when it only won two seats.

    Since Okorie, the party’s visioner, left the platform in crisis, APGA has not remained the same. Within two years, he tried to lay a solid and effective foundation for the party. He returned to APGA recently after pleas, only to meet a more divided platform.

    In 2023, APGA failed to produce a senator in Anambra. The three senators – Victor Umeh (LP), Tony Nwoye (LP), and Ifeanyi Ubah (YPP/APC) – are threatening to unseat APGA in its stronghold in the next governorship poll.

    Okorie was succeeded by Umeh who later won a seat in the Senate but was later denied re-nomination before defecting, in protest, to the LP on which platform he was re-elected.

    After a protracted leadership battle between Njoku and Victor Oye, APGA’s National Executive Committee (NEC) suspended the two chieftains. The Deputy National Chairman (South), Jude Okeke, became the Acting Chairman in June 2021.

    However, Oye continued controlling much of the party and claimed he was the rightful chairman until the Supreme Court ruled in his favour in October 2021. Irked by the verdict, Njoku went to court to seek redress. He was pronounced the authentic national chairman, although the party, now under the leadership of Soludo, has made Ezeokenwa its national chairman.

    The people of Anambra have supported APGA since 2002, despite its protracted crisis. The recent experience whereby they voted for candidates of other parties during the senatorial elections should be worrisome to the party’s leadership. There was fatigue and a review of solidarity.

    There is a need for soul-searching and genuine reconciliation in APGA, if the party is not to go into eclipse.

    A crisis is an ill will that blows nobody any good. APGA’s leaders need to make this their watchword and make urgent amends to put the party on more solid ground for better performances at the poll.

  • APGA crisis: I’m not guilty – Oye insists

    The National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Chief Victor Oye, has absorbed himself from allegations leveled against him by aggrieved members of the party. He wondered why some party members would continue to castigate and impugn his integrity after working so hard for the party. The party had been rocked with crises over the conduct and outcome of last primary of the general elections which some members kicked against.

    Speaking with journalists at the weekend in Amawbia, Awka South local government area of Anambra State, the APGA helmsman urged the aggrieved members to sheathe their swords in the interest of the party. He warned that the party would no longer fold its hands and allow any person to destroy efforts put in place to give APGA an identity in the country.

    He said, “I have not deliberately offended anybody in the course of my duty as the national chairman of this great party. During our primaries in 2019, I didn’t send anybody out to do untoward things for me. I sent them to go and do good jobs for our party and bring me result. If anybody went there to do any dirty thing, it was his integrity that he destroyed not mine nor of the party.

    Oye continued, “The primaries had come and gone. Everybody won’t win the primaries; some will win. I can’t understand where these grievances are coming from. However, I’m not perturbed. It’s only God that can decide our faith in life. Only God can crown a king; and when God anoints you, no man can undo the anointing.

  • APGA crisis worsens as woman leader confronts Ojukwu over Umeh

    APGA crisis worsens as woman leader confronts Ojukwu over Umeh

    Fresh crisis may be brewing in the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA), as wife of the former leader of the party, Bianca Ojukwu is up in arms against the National Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Umeh over the running of the party.

    Bianca Ojukwu, who is Nigeria’s Ambassador to Spain and a chieftain of APGA, has recently engaged in criticism of Chief Umeh and his leadership of the party.

    Chief Umeh, who is set to contest for the senatorial seat in Anambra State in the 2015 elections, has, however, remained silent probably in respect to the former leader of the party, late Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu.

    While Umeh may have chosen to be silent on Bianca’s attack on him and the party, APGA’s  woman leader, Ezinne Amaka Agbiogwu has risen stoutly in his defence and asked Bianca to “keep quiet and face her Ambassadorial assignment, pointing out that without Chief Umeh there will not anything like APGA in any state by now”

    Agbiogwu, in an interview with selected newsmen in Abuja, wondered why Bianca” who knows next to nothing about the party, how it has been managed over the years and the individuals, who have made sacrifices for the growth of the party, will suddenly be attacking the national chairman”.

    The APGA Woman Leader noted that, “Chief Umeh has demonstrated exemplary leadership and character that Nigerians are proud of; I wonder who can claim ignorance of what the man has done, except Bianca.”

    She advised Bianca to “respect Chief Umeh as her national chairman and elder brother, and appreciate the respect the man accorded our former leader, Dim Ojukwu, her husband, in life and in death”

    Agbiogwu further stated that “whatever misgivings Bianca has against the national chairman, if there is any at all, can be addressed without trying to cast aspersion on the  hard earned corporate image of the hard working chairman”

    “In any case, if she has been positioned to pull down our national chairman because of political reasons, then she has lost it because Indi Igbo and Anambra people love Chief Umeh and appreciates what he has done for them so far and cannot abandon him now,” she enthused.

    The woman leader posited that Chief Umeh “has been called by his people to come and represent them in the Senate, and he is focused on that assignment and will not be distracted by anybody under any guise.”

    She advised Bianca to “focus on giving Nigeria a positive image in Spain or resign your Ambassadorial assignment and return home to try your luck in partisan politics and see whether you can match Chief Umeh’s accomplishments.”

    The APGA chieftain also revealed that, “all the women in the party were solidly behind Chief Umeh’s senatorial ambition because of his contributions to the party and love for women development despite the pull-him-down antics of the Bianca.”

    “Part of Chief Umeh’s gender friendly disposition is the waiver given to APGA women to obtain expression of interest and nomination forms at 50 percent discount from what the men are paying,” she concluded.

  • APGA crisis: Okorie flays Obi, Umeh’s reconciliation

    APGA crisis: Okorie flays Obi, Umeh’s reconciliation

    FORMER National Chairman and co-founder of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has lampooned the much publicised reconciliation between Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi and the National Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Umeh, describing it as a mere reunion of hitherto separated kinsmen. He insisted that the coming together of the duo does not in anyway, ameliorate the raging leadership crisis that has bedeviled the party since his exit, adding that APGA is currently under the “captivity of political kidnappers”. Okorie, who is presently the National Chairman of the United Progressive Party (UPP), made the disclosure yesterday in Owerri, the Imo State capital, during a press conference to conclude his two-day visit to the state. He posited that the purported reconciliation between Governor Peter Obi and embattled APGA National Chairman, Chief Victor Umeh, was a mere conflict resolution between two kinsmen which does not have anything to do with the leadership crisis that has bedeviled the party. According to him, “to give APGA the opportunity to redeem itself, all pending suits which is more than 28 should be withdrawn. APGA won’t even present a valid candidate in the Anambra gubernatorial election because once anyone emerges the other faction will go to court.” Okorie said UPP truly represents the aspirations of all minority groups across the country, adding that it is a platform that will address the age-long marginalisation of Ndigbo. “We need a political party with the independence to allow Ndigbo the opportunity to aspire to the highest position in the country and that is why the UPP has zoned the presidential ticket to the Southeast in the 2015 election,” he stated. Okorie described the UPP which was registered as a political party in 2012 as a coalition of progressive forces that will engage the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and other political parties he described as reactionary forces in an epic political contest that will change the political landscape of the country. “The 2015 election is a miracle waiting to happen and the shocker is that an Igbo man will occupy Aso Rock as the next president.”

  • APGA crisis: Why Obi won’t reply Umeh

    APGA crisis: Why Obi won’t reply Umeh

    Barrister Vincent Ezenwajiaku is Anambra State Commissioner for Special Duties. A pharmacist and lawyer turned politician, who abandoned a PhD programme abroad to answer the call to serve his people, has remained vocal since the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) crisis started. In this interview with ODOGWU EMEKA ODOGWU in Nnewi, Ezenwajiaku speaks on some burning issues, including the APGA crisis. Excerpts: 

    As a commissioner in Governor Peter Obi’s government, which clocked seven years on Sunday, how would you rate his performance?

    I am part of the government and would hurt objectivity if I try to judge it. I think the judgment is better left for outsiders to do. Whatever I say would be followed by people saying ‘Ah, as a government official, what do you expect him to say?’ I therefore leave it to you to do the assessment as you all are in the state and are witnesses to what is going on. Even as umpires, you can go out and seek the views of those who are in a position to tell you the brutal truth.

    Let us have your views and balance them with those of others.

    Giving you my views is very easy. All I am saying is that those views cannot stand even for balancing. People comment about the government of Peter Obi on a daily basis. So, my own is not, in my view, important.

    Let me even help you out. As the Governor of Anambra State, one thing we cannot take away from the governor is abundance of energy that I do not know how many people can meet up with. These days, if you read the papers, you would have discovered that due to his policy about education, which saw him returning schools to their owners, he is much in contact with church leaders. I mean credible church leaders who do not have any reason to dissimulate facts.

    I read in the papers how Archbishop Valerian Okeke of the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha reviewed what he is doing across all sectors and rated him as the best Governor Anambra State has had. He talked about how Obi is building a future for the state through the overhaul of the education sector, building of roads across the state, attracting foreign investors, rebuilding the health sector, prompt payment of salaries and pensions after clearing the arrears owed for years, among others. He ended up by saying in Igbo, Odi ka Obi akona anyi, meaning ‘May we not lack a person like Obi’.

    The other day, I followed His Excellency (Obi) to a function attended by the Catholic Bishop of Awka, Most Rev. Paulinus Ezeokafor. The bishop echoed his brother by saying that Obi was God’s gift to Anambra State. Having come down from Ihiala to Awka that day from Dr. Obinna Uzor’s function, the bishop said it took him about 30 minutes to make the trip, whereas in the past, the journey would have lasted three hours because of bad road. What does that show you? The bishop asked God in prayers to give the state a person as good as Obi if he could not give us a person better than him.

    Of course you need to listen to Archbishop Efobi of the Anglican Communion. Talking about Obi, he quoted the Bible: “When the righteous are on the throne, the people rejoice.” I can tell you that in Anambra today, everybody knows that Obi has done well. Some people who do not have character may want to prevaricate for one reason or the other. What I am saying is that politicians can see A and call it B.

    What, in specific terms, would you regard as his achievements?

    Where do we start from? He has tarred more than 700 Kilometres of roads and we are still counting. Almost every day, he flags off road projects, and work is going on all of them. He constructed roads in the most difficult parts of the state where nobody thought about until he came on board. In health, he has built a teaching hospital from the scratch, rehabilitated general hospitals, built new hospitals and health centres, bought hospital equipment and got accreditation for the health institutions. As we speak, he is building, in partnership with the MDG, about 25 structures in missionary hospitals.

    It was Obi who built the first secretariat in the state as well as the first and second massive business parks. He bought vehicles for ranking government officials in the executive, judiciary and legislature. He cleared the arrears of salaries and pension of close to N10 billion. He has attracted multinational companies to Anambra State. At the last count, we have about four of them. Some have built facilities, others are coming on board. Under him, Anambra became an oil-producing state after he invested billions in Orient Petroleum.

    In the area of education still, even after the return of primary schools to churches, he has given them support to the tune of about N6 billion in cash to rehabilitate the schools. One can go on and on, but the most amazing part of it is that he has not borrowed money from any financial institution nor raised bond as many states are doing in Nigeria.

    The President was so excited with his relationship with the Church that he said the centre he wants to help his Otuoke community build through friends would be handed over to the Church to manage. Obi has equally attracted the attention of the World Bank, which has sent people to Anambra to study his revolution in education with the aim of using it as a model for other African countries and developing world to emulate. Paul Collier, a notable Oxford professor, was so excited about this that he has been propagating it to other African leaders.

    You mentioned Chief Victor Umeh in an unfamiliar way. But according to newspaper reports, Umeh said he fell out with the governor because of his (governor’s) failure to conduct local government election…

    Although I have stopped reading his falsehood, I can tell you that 99 per cent of what the man says is false. Until he started fighting the governor, he singlehandedly brought the names of those who were appointed into the transition committees. What then is the logic in saying that he opposed it? I have noticed that in Nigeria, what professional politicians do is to employ the instrument of blackmail against the person they are not supporting. Umeh was the one who, through his one-man show business in the form of chairmanship of APGA, prevented the party from growing. I think the recent judgment of an Enugu High Court was providential. It will now give opportunity to those who have the interest of the party at heart to restructure it.

    Are you saying that Victor Umeh has not contributed to the building of APGA or what?

    If you are in partnership business with somebody, how do you measure your gain? It is simply by balancing gains vis-à-vis efforts. In the case of Umeh, the ratio of efforts to gain is about five per cent to 90 per cent. Would you say that such a person has suffered for the party? APGA was largely financed by Peter Obi. It was even his house at Abuja that initially served as APGA’s office. Even when the President asked APGA to get some names for appointment in the spirit of building a national government, Victor brought the names of people he could control.

    How do you mean?

    I am a foundation member of APGA. In the beginning, Umeh, who now brags about what he is not, was the Personal Assistant to an Anambra politician, Chief Okonkwo (Ofiadiulu). The man is still active in politics. Somehow, he became the treasurer of APGA. When APGA removed Chief Chekwas Okorie, we were having the meeting of Anambra party members, and Obi said that from the experience of betrayals he had had, he would prefer Victor Umeh to be appointed the Acting Chairman. That was how he became the Acting Chairman. But today, surprisingly and incredibly, I hear him say that he made the governor.

    Does this allegation remove from the fact that Chief Umeh contributed N4 million to Obi’s tribunal case as reported in a national newspaper?

    Who said so?

    He said so in an interview he granted the newspaper.

    This is the reason why I told you that I do not read what the man says any longer. How can anybody believe this? We know where we are coming from. Before Obi became the governor, he was on the board of about seven quoted companies, including about four financial institutions, by virtue of his investment. The man who said he donated N4 million to Obi’s tribunal case at that time was living in a two-room apartment. At that time, Obi was the one who procured an international passport for him alongside other party members, as well as sponsored his first trip overseas. It was also Obi who bought Umeh his first V-boot Mercedes car. Yet he has the boldness to say he contributed N4 million to tribunal efforts. Can’t you read between the lines? Today from a two-room apartment, he is now living at a palatial home, one of the best in Enugu.

    Since Umeh started talking, don’t you think it is ripe for the governor to speak at this point and set the records straight?

    I thought you people love the governor?

    That is why we need him to speak.

    Why would the governor be trading words with Umeh? Who is he? If you are in Anambra, you would have noticed that Obi is one of the busiest governors. As I speak, he is away to Rome as part of the Federal Government’s delegation for the installation of the new Pope. No week passes without him having a meeting in Abuja. He belongs to more than 10 federal committees, besides being the Financial Adviser to the President. He is also the Chairman of South-East Governors Forum as well as the Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. For a person saddled with all these responsibilities to have time to reply people will be tantamount to lunacy.

    Away from politics, what is the government’s position on the Ezu River corpses?

    Well, we are satisfied with what the governor has done. Remember, he cut his trip short and returned to the state the moment the sad incident was discovered. Since then, he has visited the place four times, personally supervised the removal of the bodies from the river and commissioned an autopsy on the bodies. He also got the entire town fumigated, sent supplies to them and provided the only borehole that is working. I say this because some people pretended they were digging boreholes but nothing has happened. If you go there today, the only boreholes that are working in the town are the two provided by the governor.

    Has autopsy revealed how the people were killed?

    We are all waiting for the report.