Abia State Working Committee (SWC) of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has described those masquerading themselves as leaders of the party as impostors, who must be ignored.
Speaking during a press conference in Umuahia yesterday, APGA Chairman, Nkem Okoro, said some people who earlier addressed journalists, led by the former Chairman, Augustine Ehiemere, spoke for themselves.
He said the former officials only addressed the earlier press conference, “with a view to insulting some respected former leaders of our party who left recently due to the leadership crisis rocking the party.”
Describing the former officials’ action as embarrassing, Okoro said APGA working committee in Abia is headed by him and that Ehiemere and others are impersonating the authentic APGA leadership.
“We dare ask, where are Ehiemere and his team operating from? Where is their secretariat? Why was their press conference held in a hotel?
“Everyone knows that the APGA secretariat is here on 74, School Road. Umuahia and has been here since 2014,” he said.
The chairman accused APGA National Chairman, Victor Oye, of sponsoring the former officials “to create doubts in the minds of the unsuspecting public.”
He accused the national leadership of the party of breaking APGA “into three factions with a plethora of litigations even when there is a governorship election in Anambra State next year.”
The state chairman said well-meaning members were “strategizing on how to go and beg the likes of Bianca Ojukwu, Stella Oduah, Ifeanyi Uba, Frank Nneji, David Onuoha, Chris Nkwonta, Okey Eze, Humphrey Anumudu, Stanley Amuchie, Uche Onyeaguocha, Alex Otti and other respected former APGA members who left the party, over the atrocities perpetrated by the former national leadership, the same former leadership hurriedly deployed some disgruntled former Abia SWC members to go and insult these leaders in the name of press conference.”
It described the action of the former state leaders as “provocative, to say the least, and must not be tolerated,” while apologising to “all those who were insulted and provoked to leave the party.”
Specifically, the state chairman apologised to “Otti, who has just indicated his intention to leave the party. We recognise his immense contributions in building a formidable APGA in Abia State and we are appealing to him and others to return after we must have cleaned up the party and completely gotten rid of those who are using the party to indulge in fraudulent extortions.”