Edozie Njoku, a founding member and former national vice chairman of APGA, Edozie Njoku whose group held a parallel convention in Owerri said that he is the real National Chairman of the party.
What’s actually happening in APGA?
After the elections, political parties now appraise themselves, know how they’ve done, and normally chat a way forward, but fortunately for APGA we had a convention at the beginning of the new political season and for some reasons most people in APGA said okay, Oye I don’t want to be criticising you as National Chairman of the party; they now said no that they feel that someone new should come and spearhead the party through the next four years. Let’s try somebody else. For some reasons, he said he wants to stay in power for another four years that he has tried and many members of NEC, BoT were saying no, we need to do a convention and try someone else. He now went blindly and did a NEC meeting outside the NEC and excluded a few of the BoT members; those who’re vocal that there must be changes in the party, a lot of NEC members were excluded. Luckily for the party, a few BoT members went to court and got an exparte order. The order was that you can’t exclude the members of BoT from NEC meeting and expect that NEC meeting to be binding on the party and the judge made a complete statement that anything that has to do with that NEC meeting that they did; whether it’s has been done or going to be done; should not be done. It’s an exparte order, until they come back to court on the 3rd of July. Oye and co now went behind and decided to do another convention; which was the convention in Awka; you know they have the power and money; they decided to call all big people around and met in Awka where the group nominated him as the National Chairman ignoring the court order. Now, he claims that there was a court at Ibadan which gave him the order to disobey the court order. That’s what we’re looking at before the end of this week (last week), but all I keep saying to APGA members is that they should be calm and rest assured that their wish will come to pass. APGA will always survive crises and this one; we’ve made up our minds that we’ll definitely survive it.
If there was a court order that nothing should happen; how come that you were elected National Chairman in Owerri?
The judge said that anything emanating out of the May 14th NEC meeting; the NEC meeting that slated the Owerri convention never emanated from that their NEC meeting. It was from the NEC decision that they published what and what that happened in the May 14th NEC in the newspapers. The judge now said any decision that came out of that meeting which includes the dissolution of the BoT, the congresses that were done or that particular congress that was done and convention. Our own convention emanated from the majority of the NEC, NEC called a completely different meeting from the one Oye called on 14th May and the meeting that the judge talked about was done in the Government House.
So, who will we say is the National Chairman of APGA today?
I’m the National Chairman of APGA, my tenure starts from June 7. What that court order means is that Oye wasn’t allowed to do that convention; he’s still a member of the party, but by June 7, he vacates and another executive takes over.
So, what about the one that is called authentic APGA?
There is nothing like authentic APGA; we are all one party, few people are not happy with some things, but that doesn’t split the party into different parties. We are one APGA. I see something like the one you called authentic APGA as a line up within the political party.
Are you not bothered about the future of the party?
I am very bothered; as I said earlier, I’m one of the founding fathers of the party. I’ve been in the party for such a long time. I was the first National Vice Chairman of the party, you know a lot of people have actually left the party along the line and for most people who left, check around the different political parties; you don’t find them very prominent in the parties. You see their heart is somehow with APGA. We are embarking on proper reconciliation to be able to say sorry to the aggrieved, after all, we are brothers and sisters and the party is a national party; it started from the Southeast, so, we have to repair our home first, then we can take our party out, we don’t want crisis going on for several years. It’s time to say that enough is enough. But I am convinced that before next week, the party is going to come up with a statement to define their stand in all of these.
How can APGA come out of all of these?
I said to you earlier on that the party is going to come out with a position very shortly and it’s for us who are within the party to do our best because it’s our party. So, we need to go under one roof and sort it out, the party needs to make a pronouncement. The convention that was done in Owerri has got the blessing at least 75 per cent of NEC. As the convention finished, another five to 10 per cent has come across trying to write their names and sign because they all signed a document before the convention took place. Thirty to 40 per cent of members of the National Working Committee with Oye now; have already signed the document, saying something about the convention in Owerri. The party will make a statement. If it is the last thing I’ll do, I must make sure peace is brought back to APGA. It’s the first and most important thing because you can’t carry a party with crises moving along; there must be a way to resolve all these problems. When the reconciliation is going on; I’ll make sure that the founding fathers of the party are brought into the picture or they are on the top of the picture.