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APGA in death throes, battles for survival

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APGA leadership crisis deepens, as two presidential candidates emerge

By OBINNA EZUGWU

For the umpteenth time, crisis is brewing in the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), which may be the beginning of the end for the political party that once embodied Igbo political aspiration as it continues to search for relevance.

On May 31, the party held parallel national conventions, one in Awka, the other in Owerri. The Awka convention, organised by the faction loyal to the party’s only governor, Willie Obiano, returned Dr. Victor Ike Oye as National Chairman and the governor as chairman, Board of Trustees, while also returning Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, wife of the party’s founding figure, Chief Emeka Ojukwu, among others as members.

Instructively, Mrs. Ojukwu stayed away from the convention. So did the likes of Senator c. The second convention which held in Owerri, Imo State produced  Edozie Njoku, its former First Vice Chairman, South, as National Chairman.

As to be expected both chairmen are laying claim to authenticity. Njoku said his emergence followed the nullification of the outcome of the meeting by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) held in Awka on May 14 by a court of competent jurisdiction. He said he would take “necessary steps to reconcile aggrieved members of the party.”

But the Oye faction dismisses the Njoku group with the wave of the hand. Chief Ben Obi, a chieftain of the group dismissed their primary as “a charade,” noting that an order from an Ibadan High Court gave the Awka convention legal backing.

The bickering is not new. It has become the characteristic of the party, one that started with Chief Umeh and Chief Chekwas Okorie. The APGA brand appears to be in its twilight. In 2014 it held parallel governorship primaries, a feat it repeated in 2017 ahead of the Anambra governorship polls.

APGA is now hardly out of crisis. The immediate cause of the current one is apparently the bitterly contested 2018 primaries. The days leading up to the May 31 convention were eventful. A few weeks prior, the Dr. Oye led NWC were said to have expelled aggrieved members who took the party to court in the aftermath of the primary elections last year.

The primary, it would be recalled, was alleged to have been marred by irregularities. According to many people, tickets were only given to the highest bidders, and those favoured by the party’s leadership after the unsuspecting members were made to pay through their noses to buy the forms.

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The aggrieved members, including Mrs. Ojukwu, reportedly took the party to court to seek redress. And in response, the party’s NWC suspended them. Subsequently, the National Executive Committee (NEC), met on May 14th and among other decisions – including dissolution of the Board of Trustees ahead of the congresses in line with its constitution – rectified the suspension of the aggrieved members.

“In line with the constitution of the party, and in view of the congresses and convention, BOT was dissolved at the NEC meeting to be reconstituted,” Reverend Austin Ehiemere, Abia State chapter Chairman told BusinessHallmark.

“NEC confirmed that those who took the party to court stand expelled from the party.” But the affected members insisted that the Oye led NWC had no right to suspend them and that the NEC meeting where the suspension was rectified was illegal.

“The NEC meeting they had is a fake NEC; it was not a properly constituted NEC. Everybody knows that any political party that wants to have NEC meeting will advertise it in a newspaper to notify their members all over the country. They never did that because APGA under Oye is a fraud,” declared Chief Ziggy Chibuzo Azike, who aspired for governorship in Imo State.

“Oye is doing his rubbish,” Azike said. “He is not a member of our party. Obiano brought him and made him national chairman. Now he is destroying the party. There is nobody that has been suspended. There is no competent body that can suspend anybody. So, they are talking nonsense.” He said Oye’s second term is illegal. According to him, the party is being destroyed by him.

“APGA is not anybody’s personal property and it’s important to understand that. These are people who are later day joiners; men of no substance who have not brought any value to the party. Because of Oye, APGA has suffered terrible losses. All the goodwill and all the effort we made over the years he has frittered away.”

In a similar reaction days ago, Mrs. Ojukwu, who sought the party’s senatorial ticket for Anambra South, but was denied, argued that Oye could not have suspended her because “he is a tenant in APGA and a tenant could not sack a landlord.”

When contacted however, Dr. Oye insisted that the NEC meeting followed all laid down procedure and that the convention held as planned.

“Regarding NEC meeting, APGA constitution does not require the notice to be published in a newspaper,” Oye said. “The notice only needed to be in writing pursuant to Article 23 (3) of the APGA constitution. I summoned the meeting of May 14 in writing. All the schedule of activities for the Congress was what we published on Daily Sun of May 15th after NEC approval of May 14.

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Azike was one of the aggrieved members who took the party to court over the outcome of the governorship primary in Imo. He, like many others, was undone by the alleged manipulation of the entire primary process. In Imo, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume, originally of the All Progressive Congress (APC) was announced governorship candidate in controversial circumstances. The crisis emanating from the primary is proving to be the party’s Achilles Heel.

But of course, the APGA’s problem takes root from its derailing from the core fundamental objective that birthed it. Obvious from recent political events is that, perhaps as many political watchers have pointed out, APGA has lost its soul, and the recurrent crisis is only an indication that the party is heading towards an inglorious end.

When APGA emerged in the political arena ahead of the 2003 general election, it was basically the Igbo response to their perceived marginalisation in the Nigerian polity. The party, with the late Chief Ojukwu as its face, represented, for the average Igbo, a political identity. One could say, APGA drew its strength from the Igbo emotional attachment to it.

“The strong desire to found a national political party based on Igbo initiative motivated me to rally a few associates on the platform of Igboezue Cultural Association which I founded in 1991 with the Motto: “Onye aghala nwanne ya,” (let’s be our brothers’ keepers) to embark on the mission of forming a political party,” recalled Chief Okorie, the party’s original founder and its first National Chairman.

He perhaps foresaw that the possibility of an Igbo quest for power in a national political party did not exist, a fact further validated by the travails of the late former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme in the PDP. UPGA transmuted to APGA in 2003 with Ojukwu as its founding figure.

With Ojukwu, APGA, in many people’s reckoning, filled a void in the Igbo political consciousness which the PDP despite being the dominant political party in the Igbo country, could not fill. The generality of the people identified with it. In some ways, it was a response to the Alliance for Democracy in the South west and the All Nigeria Peoples Party in the North.

Chief Obiano, Anambra state governor and leader of the party, not only stood on the party’s platform to back the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, perceived by many Igbo to have taken Igbo marginalisation to a whole new level,  but also rained verbal abuses on the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo for endorsing Buhari’s opponent, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, who coincidentally, had Peter Obi, his predecessor as vice presidential candidate.

If there was any emotional attachment to APGA left, it perhaps completely vanished on account of the party’s role in the last election. But Obiano and the current APGA leadership are not the only culprits in this regard. Mr. Obi, his predecessor is widely praised for his performance as governor between 2006 and 2014. No doubt, he proved to be a good administrator.

However, same could not be said of him as a party man. As the first and only APGA governor for a long stretch of time, Obi could have cashed in on the party’s goodwill to push it beyond Anambra. This he failed to do, understandably, because he did not want the financial burden involved. And perhaps to his credit, he opted to use the state funds to develop infrastructure instead of playing party politics.

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Obiano’s regime coincided with the emergence of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) led by the rabble rousing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. As a governor, nobody could have expected Obiano to openly identify with a separatist group like IPOB. But at the same time, nobody could have expected that the leader of an “Ojukwu” party to support the killing of its members by those accused of being anti-Igbo, even if by his body language.

“Obiano who is a major beneficiary of the APGA brand appears to be committed to making himself the last APGA governor,” Chief Azike said. “Obiano wants to destroy APGA so that when he goes, there won’t be another APGA governor.

“They killed APGA from when they conceived APGA as “Nkea bu nkeanyi,” (this is our own). APGA’s slogan used to be “Onye aghala nwanne ya” (Let’s be our brother’s keeper). We didn’t understand that it meant “Nkea bu nke ha” (this is their own).

“The Nkeanyi that Obiano, Umeh and Oye conceived was just for it to be their own, the three of them. From onye aghala nwanne ya, which is what Igbo people say, to nkea bu nkeanyi, shows the selfishness of the trio. You can no longer tell an Igbo that APGA is his party; he will just ask you, what are you talking about. They destroyed the essence of APGA. There is no more essence in APGA.”

APGA’s dwindling fortune showed clearly in the presidential and national assembly elections held on March 23. APGA lost all senate seats in Anambra, its’ very stronghold and failed to win any seats in Imo and Abia states for the first time. Chief Victor Umeh, the only senator within its ranks, lost to Mrs. Uche Ekwunife of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Although the party won three of eleven house of reps seat in Anambra, and surprisingly, another three out of seven in Benue where it’s presidential candidate, Gen. John Gbor, comes from, it fared badly overall in Anambra and other states of the South East. Indeed, the newly formed Young Democratic Party (YDP) on whose platform, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, ran for president matched APGA, winning one of three available senate seats in Anambra. And that, for observers, is a sign of things to come for the party.

“APGA lost its essence the moment the party was hijacked some years ago by people who didn’t share in the vision for which it was founded. It is as a result of that derailment that took place about 15 years ago, in 2004. APGA was founded in 2002 and by December 2004, they had already launched an attack against the founder, myself,” said Chief Okorie.

“We remained in court for eight years. As a result, the party never grew beyond Anambra State. Any in-road it made into any state, it quickly returned back to Anambra State. It entered Imo, but couldn’t stay there and so on and so forth. So, it was a gradual process that has almost resulted in outright decimation of the party. It’s not a damage that was done just in one day.

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“Don’t forget that after I produced Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu as presidential candidate, APGA never produced any other presidential candidate of Igbo extraction from that time till now. And one of the reasons for founding it was to give the Igbo man an opportunity to be involved in the contest for the highest office in the land.”

APGA did win 26 of 30 seats in the subsequent state assembly election, but it was nothing extraordinary as we have seen in many states where the party in power sweeps most assembly seats without necessarily being popular. Its’ ability to win five assembly seats in Imo is positive however, but still perhaps not good enough.

For some nonetheless, it was indeed Ojukwu’s demise in 2011 that marked significant turning point in the party. It subsequently lacked a natural leader; a father figure. The party has continued to try to leverage on the Ojukwu name, but that obviously has lost appeal.

“It is a shame that the party is being destroyed in the face of Obiano. As the leader of the party, the party is completely being destroyed,” Prof Max Nduaguibe, a chieftain of the party in Abia noted.

“Obi left the party after his governorship and went to PDP. He left the party more or less intact for Obiano.

“The merchants who took over the party with Obiano decided to use it to make money. And they have made sufficient money from Imo people, from Abia people, even from Anambra people. You can see that they even denied the wife of Ojukwu ticket.”

“The essence of APGA is almost getting lost because of avarice. Avarice is the major factor, Barr Bob Okey Okoroji, a chieftain of the party who aspired to Lagos governorship through its platform told BusinessesHallmark after the last polls.

“The focus and the desire by some individuals in leadership position both at the national and state levels, is to make money. Therefore, they relegate to the background, those fundamental principles on which the party was founded.”

“I do understand too, that their leadership is not going to be forever. They will be there for a while and maybe those who share the vision of the founding fathers will get into leadership and bring the party to where it should be. The party’s performance in Imo is also not very encouraging because of the primary elections.”

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Dr. Oye, regardless, insisted all is well with the party and they were, “determined not to be distracted by miscreants who are being used by opposition politicians to cause disaffection in APGA.”

 

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