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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013
POLITICS THE NATION
E-mail:- politics@thenationonlineng.net
APGA CRISES The National Chairman of the All Progrersives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh, and the factional Chairman, Maxi Okwu, spoke with CHRIS OJI on the crises rocking the party.
Okwu: I ‘m APGA’s authentic chairman T
•Umeh and his supporters jubilating after the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Enugu.
Okwu’s activities are illegal, says Umeh
H
OW would you react to Maxi Okwu’s speech that APGA will not embraceOjukwu’s extremist approach? For Maxi to come out and describe our great and respected leader as an extremist, it shows the level of destruction that he is planning for APGA. Ojukwu was never an extremist. Ojukwu was a man who stood very strongly for justice; a man who stood very strongly against injustice; a man who stood against the oppression of people, a man who stood for equity and fairness, a man who stood for the rule of law and a man who stood for democracy. It is an abomination for anybody, who claims to be standing on the platform of APGA, to describe Ojukwu’s virtues as extremist. This is a blasphemy of the highest order. Those of us who worked with Ojukwu as our leader in APGA will not standby and watch a man who does not have any political vision to describe Ojukwu in such denigrating words. APGA is a political party that is committed to the vision which Ojukwu represented as enumerated above. APGA will continue in that direction without apology to anybody. Do you support party members calling for sanction against him? They should tender an immediate apology for this attack on Ojukwu. But for Ojukwu, Maxi probabbly wouldn’t have been alive today. He must apologise to the Igbos and announce publicly that he has nothing to do with APGA anymore. He has demonstrated that he is an enemy of APGA, an enemy of Igbo people, an enemy of the rule of law and an enemy of democracy in this country. For all these years, he has been wandering about, according to the traditional ruler of his community, Achi. He he has never achieved anything politically. Maxi Okwu was in Alliance for Democracy (AD)
in Enugu State. When we registered APGA, he crossed over and had a short stint with APGA. When he was expelled alongside Chekwas Okorie, he joined the Green Party. From the Green Party, it metamorphosed to Citizens Popular Party (CPP). He was the National Chairman of the CPP from 2005 to 2013. Within this period, it never won a councillorship election anywhere in Nigeria. That is the man Governor Peter Obi has brought to kill APGA in Nigeria. Others say apology is not enough. Is this your position too? After the apology, the entire Ndigbo should sanction him. He should be ostracized for making such a statement against the EzeigboGburugburu. He deserves nothing short of that punishment for daring to denigrate our great leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Today, Maxi Okwu is parading himself as the National Chairman of APGA. How would you react to it? We will never accept this. Looking at the short stint he had in the APGA, since he was mentioned in connection with theAPGA on February 16 till date, all the activities in the purported faction they are leading, all of them have been enmeshed in illegality. There is nothing they have done that is legal. They started with an illegal national caucus that has no constitutional power to elect or appoint the interim officials for APGA. That was where Maxi Okwu first emerged and he knew that it was wrong under the provisions of the APGA Constitution. He participated in it and emerged as the interim national chairman. Knowing that his emergence was unconstitutional and unlawful, Maxi Okwu never wrote a letter to the Independent National Electoral Commission,
describing himself as the interim national chairman of APGA. There was no correspondence between INEC and Maxi Okwu. There was no correspondence between INEC and Maxi Okwu between that period and today where he claimed to be anything. Instead, he created non-existent things in the name of APGA and on the pages of newspapers and finally deceived the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) into attending their illegal convention that was conducted by 1.00 a.m on April 8, 2013. On March 9, at Awka, they were purported to have held a meeting of state chairmen of APGA/National Executive Council meeting. There is no such meeting under the APGA Constitution where you have the forum of chairmen/National Executive Council meeting. At least, for the communiqué they issued. Everything about that meeting was shrouded in secrecy. The names of people who attended that purported meeting was never published. Unlike us, we have been taking advertorials, publishing names of those that attended our meetings. They hid the list of people who attended that meeting from the Nigerian public. Instead, they continued to engage in propaganda that 36 state chairmen attended the meeting. I suspected foul play and wrote the INEC requesting for a certified true copy of the list of those who attended that meeting, including the notices they gave them, because they were always publishing them in the papers. All these things we requested from INEC, we were not obliged with the certified true copy of people who attended that meeting. On Friday, April 5, it was announce that INEC has acceded to the request of Governor Obi’s faction to convene a convention of APGA on April 8, and they will be attending it.
HE newly elected national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Maxi Okwu, has declared that he is the authentic chairman of the party. He dismissed the re-instatement of Chief Victor Umeh as the national chairman by the Appeal Court, Enugu, as a hoax. The chairman also said that Umeh’s hope of bouncing back as the chairman has been sealed. Okwu said that the ruling has no legal implication capable of hindering the elected national officers from performing their roles as party leaders. Okwu was recently elected as the APGA national chairman at a convention held in Awka, Anambra State capital. However, few hours after the convention, the Court of Appeal ordered for a stay of execution of the judgment of an Enugu High Court, which sacked Umeh and the members of the party’s National Working Committee on February 8. Okwu, who spoke with reporters at his country home, Achi, in Oji, explained that the court ruling had no effect on the newly elected executive. He spoke shortly after he was conferred with the chieftaincy title of “Ogbaturu Enyi,” (one that conquered a giant) by the traditional ruler of Akwunobi Kingdom, Igwe Ginger Ibeneme. He said before the ruling came, the High Court had ruled that the party could proceed with the convention. Okwu added: “Anybody who knows how the court operates will tell you that you can’t stay a declarative judgment, such as that of the Enugu High Court. “You also can’t stay a judgment that has already been executed. The judgment was executed as early as 8a.m on Monday and around 12 noon, some people started talking about othe rder for the stay of execution. “So, that ruling is an exercise in futility. Even, a first year Law student knows that you don’t stay an order that has been executed. We already have a new born baby, which is the APGA execu-
tive and it can’t be aborted again”. Okwu reiterated his commitment to the restructuring of the party, assuring that the next year’s governorship election would be won by the party. He added: “Governor Peter Obi has done so much in Anambra State. He restored sanity to the state. So, I’m optimistic that Anambra people will vote for APGA again.” Igwe Akwunobi had earlier urged the new APGA chairman to remain committed to the responsibility of his office. He said: “You have been going around in the political arena, but in this year, your own time to shine politically has come”. The monarch, who stressed that he was not a politician, but a father to all the politicians, irrespective of their political leanings, called for the equal treatment of the parties by the electoralcommission during the election. But, in a statement, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Anambra State chapter, has called on the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) to investigate the conduct of the convention, alleging that the process was controversial. Its Secretary, Chief Willy Ezugwu, said the monitoring of the convention by INEC was confusing.
‘You also can’t stay a judgment that has already been executed. So, that ruling is an exercise in futility. Even, a first year Law student knows that you don’t stay an order that has been executed. We already have a new born baby, which is the APGA executive and it can’t be aborted again’
Ezugwu, who is also a chieftain of the APGA, said that CNPP believed that the convention was an eyesore. He said: “We are calling on INEC Chairman Prof Attahiru Jega to investigate the fraudulent conduct of the convention and the INEC personnel that monitored the proceedings of the event between 1am to 7 a.m that Monday. “How did INEC itself got entangled? I doubt if Jega was given adequate notice to be part of such a deal to monitor a convention at that unholy time or is INEC no longer a public institution?”. Ezugwu also wondered why Gov Obi should applaud the convention and allow his cohorts to discredit the Court of Appeal ,where three judges gave a ruling for a of execution and ordered the reinstatement of the national chairman and the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party. He added: “I do not see any reason why Governor Obi should support the convention by applauding it and allow the Commissioner for Information and culture, Mr Joemartins Uzodike, to disregard the Appeal court judgment by describing it as judgment in futility” The party chieftain also called on the Inspector-General of Police to investigate the 24 impostors claiming to be state party chairmen of APGA. He said that they had erred by signing the notice of the congresses and convention. He cited a similar case, which is pending in the court where Mr. Sadiq Massala claimed he had the mandate of 20 NWC members to remove Chief Victor Umeh from office, but INEC later discovered that 11 signatories were impostors. Ezugwu advised Governor Obi to engage in activities that can assist in building APGA, instead of creating tension in the party. He added: “Gov Obi should refrain from destroying APGA and disobeying court judgment because he was a beneficiary of the court judgment and rule of law.”
•From left: Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, Maxi Okwu and Dr. Tim Menakaya raising Okwu’s hands after he emerged as chairman at the recent convention of the party in Awka.