The story of the destruction of APGA — Ukeagbu
Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in Abia State, spoke on why his
faction adopted Gov Okezie Ikpeazu as its governorship candidate
in the last election and how APGA's ex -national chairman; Chief
Victor Umeh weakened the party in the South East zone.
Excerpt
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
One is surprised that as a chieftain of APGA in Abia State, you
backed the governorship candidate of the PDP in the last
election?
It is incorrect to say I backed the PDP candidate, Dr. Okezie
Ikpeazu, in the last governorship election in the state. The true
story was that before the elections, APGA in Abia State reviewed
the situation at hand which was that the PDP in the State had two
governorship candidates; one in PDP and the other in APGA.
What happened was that we were forced to make the best out of
a bad situation by choosing the best out of the two available
candidates of the PDP.
We zeroed in and settled for Dr. Ikpeazu who had a better
programme and human face over Dr. Alex Otti. It should not be
forgotten that the national leadership of the party at that time had
turned the nomination process of our party into one huge bazaar
and a money making venture.
The leadership refused to present strong candidates as was the
case in all the states and created problems and division to
weaken the party as was witnessed in Imo and Abia.
In Ebonyi, they even refused entreaties by some aggrieved PDP to
run on APGA platform. These are issues in public domain.
But is Dr. Alex Otti, a stranger in APGA?
As the chairman of the party in the state, I met Dr. Alex Otti for
the first time on the 11th day of November, 2014 at the APGA
national secretariat while he was purchasing nomination forms. I
was on a private assignment when the 'owner' of the party, Chief
Victor Umeh learnt I was in Abuja and ordered me to proceed to
the secretariat to witness Dr. Otti's desecration of our democratic
norms.
Of course at the point of purchasing the nomination form, Otti
was not a member of our party but it was obvious that Umeh
had ceded the governorship ticket. However, events proved that
neither Umeh nor Otti wanted the party to win the governorship
election in Abia state.
First was the attempt to disgrace and the eventual ouster from
the party of Sir Chikwe Udensi who was the financier and
governorship hopeful of the party before then; a man who single
handedly built the party in the last three preceding years and
incidentally, Dr. Otti's cousin from the same compound in Atani,
Arochukwu, Abia North. All my entreaties to Otti for a resolution
with Udensi fell on deaf ears.
APGA's National chairman, Ike Oye, said since he assumed office,
he has reached aggrieved members of APGA, that the party is
now more united? Did he approach you?
Those who brought Ike Oye as APGA national chairman did not
bring him to rebuild the party because I doubt if such is in their
agenda. How can you bring a non member to rebuild a party? It
can't work because Umeh so much battered APGA that the party
now needs a surgical operation to regain its former glory. They
brought Ike Oye to protect their interest and further the
disintegration of the party. That is why after almost eleven years
of Umeh's disastrous leadership, they could not find anybody
within the party nor could Umeh groom a successor but they had
to go outside the party to recruit another Anambra man to take
over from him. I won't answer the question about his touted
rebuilding of the party until 2019, if not 2017.
You were an unrepentant critic of the immediate past Theodore
Orji administration in Abia state, now that his successor has
started addressing some of the issues you were agitating for, can
you say that Abia is now on course?
One of the greatest political decisions I ever took against all odds
and propaganda was to back Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu. It was not a
simple decision to take for the facts that as the leader of the
opposition in the state, being the chairman of APGA the leading
opposition party in Abia, the chairman of Conference of Nigeria
Political Parties, CNPP as well as the state chairman of Intra
Party Advisory Council of Nigeria, IPAC; such move was bound to
be construed as capitulation.
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