Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the PDP (left) and Bola Tinubu of the APC
By Tony Adibe
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State has described the APC presidential rally held Wednesday in Enugu as a “monumental flop, which starkly underlines an outright rejection of the party by the Enugu State people.”
A statement issued on Thursday by the Director of Communications and Spokesperson of the Enugu PDP Campaign Council, Barr. Nana Ogbodo, stated that the dismal attendance attendance and boycott of the presidential rally by notable leaders of the party in the state, have further validated the PDP position that the crisis and the Monday protest in Abuja against the State Chairman of the party, Chief Ugochukwu Agballah, and the governorship candidate, Chief Uche Nnaji, is squarely a fight between angry and deprived members and a greedy and conceited state party leadership.
The statement noted: “What else can be more humiliating than the embarrassing drama that played out live on national television on Wednesday? It is an open rebuke of a delusional leader.”
The National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu; former Senate President, Sen. Ken Nnamani; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; former governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime; Senator Ayogu Eze, former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Eugene Odoh, DG Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu, and indeed all the notable leaders and stakeholders of the party were conspicuously absent from the Enugu presidential rally, according to Ogbodo.
He said further that although the party leaders in the state were at the Enugu airport to receive the APC’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, they however boycotted the rally at the Okpara Square and converged at the residence of the former governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime where they addressed members of the press.
The party leaders, including Senator Ken Nnamani, Chime, Onyeama, Hon. Odoh, among others, later told journalists that they were still insistent on their position during the August 2022 protest meeting with the party’s national leadership that they would not work with Chief Ugcohukwu Agballah, whom they described as an imposter, and called on the party leadership to “do the right thing”.
NewsBits recalls that the aggrieved members of the Enugu APC had on Monday staged a protest at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja where they submitted a petition to the national leadership concerning what they described as acts of “impunity, gross misconducts, incompetence, divisiveness, maladministration and embezzlement of party funds” totalling about N1.3 billion by Chief Agballah and Chief Nnaji.
The protesters led by Comrade Adolphus Ude, leader of the Concerned Enugu APC Members, who was also pioneer Deputy Chairman of the party in Enugu, equally called the attention of APC national leadership to the “fraudulent parading of Barr. George Ogara as the party’s deputy governorship candidate whereas the name and particulars of Chief Robert Ngwu were still contained in the records and website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the real deputy governorship candidate.”
They therefore called for the immediate removal of Agballah and the appointment of a caretaker chairman to salvage what may still be left of the party in Enugu State.
Reacting to the development, the Enugu State PDP said: “Maybe, Chief Ogochukwu Agballah will henceforth face his demons and stop blaming the PDP or our governorship candidate for every of his self-inflicted woes. We have no reason to worry about the Enugu APC that is already irredeemably destroyed by Agballah.
We maintain that he is a clergy without a congregation. Despite shamelessly bussing rented crowd from neighbouring states, Agballah could still not fill the small venue he chose for something as huge as a presidential rally.
“Agballah should, therefore, go home and make peace with his aggrieved party members and restitute whatever he has taken from them. We call on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately commence the probe of the serious allegations of embezzlement of members’ and party funds levelled against Agballah and the governorship candidate, Chief Uche Nnaji, by well-known Enugu APC leaders”
