By Tony Adibe
The Director General, Voice of Nigeria (VON), and a foundation chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu has reacted to the said expulsion of key chieftains of the party in Enugu State by the Ugochukwu Agballah-led leadership backed by the party State Executive Council (SEC) on Thursday.
Okechukwu said that it was unfortunate that “Agballah is ignorant of the APC Constitution” on matters concerning the expulsion of members. “He is ignorant of APC’s constitution that gave only the ward the right to suspend or sack members!”, said Okechukwu in a 6-paragraph statement he issued Thursday evening.
NewsBits reports that the APC in Enugu State had earlier announced the expulsion of former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani, former Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime and Director General of Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu from the party for alleged anti-party activities.
Also expelled included former Speaker, Enugu state House of Assembly, Eugene Odo while the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama was suspended. Onyeama’s personal assistant Flavour Eze was, however, expelled from the party.
Enugu State Secretary of the APC, Robert Ngwu, who read the decision of the State Executive Council (SEC), to journalists, stated that the recommendations of the fact finding, and disciplinary committee was adopted by SEC. Ngwu also announced the expulsion of Joe Mammel and Maduka Arum.
They were accused of working against the interest of the party and openly supporting other parties during the recently concluded elections. In his remarks, the State chairman of the party Ugo Agballa described the affected members as “habitual troublemakers who always created crisis in the party.”
He recalled how they fought the previous leadership of the party in the State and expressed joy that they have been shown the way out, adding, “Now we can have peace in Enugu APC.”
However, commenting on the development, Okechukwu said: “The story of my kinsman Ugo Agbala is the story of a failed chairman quarreling with himself. “He came from PDP akin to a political bandit and hijacked our great party with the assistance of HE. Hope Uzodinma, governor of Imo.
“To fill his empty pocket, he drove all the stakeholders away and boasted he will quadruple the 56,000 we scored in 2019 presidential election. Regrettably he scored abysmally only 4,722.
“Instead of apologizing, I cited(sic) his CV flying around at the President-Elect house and APC HQ. This (sic) why he is telling childish lie against some of us foundation members of APC, who sold the only plot of land in Enugu during my gubernatorial election in 2011.
“Ironically then Agbala was in the comfort zone of PDP, while we are constructing APC STRUCTURE. He is ignorant of APC’s constitution that gave only the ward the right to suspend or sack members!”
