The Enugu State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the APC presidential rally held Wednesday in Enugu as a “monumental flop.”
A statement issued on Thursday by the Director of Communications and Spokesperson of the Enugu PDP Campaign Council, Barr. Nana Ogbodo, noted that the boycott of the presidential rally by notable leaders of the party in the State, have further validated its position that the crisis and recent protest against the State Chairman of the party, Chief Ugochukwu Agballah, and the governorship candidate, Chief Uche Nnaji, in Abuja is squarely a fight between angry and deprived members and a greedy and conceited State party leadership.
“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 statement read.
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 as they shunned the Enugu presidential rally.
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 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 Ugchukwu Agballah, whom they described as an imposter, and called on the party leadership to “do the right thing”.
It would be recalled that the aggrieved members of the Enugu APC had on Monday staged a protest at the party’s national secretariat where they submitted a petition to the national leadership over what they described as acts of “impunity, gross misconduct, incompetence, divisiveness, maladministration and alleged embezzlement of party funds totalling about N1.3 billion.
The protesters led by Comrade Adolphus Ude, leader of the Concerned Enugu APC Members, who is also pioneer Deputy Chairman of the party in Enugu, also 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 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 further: “Maybe, Chief Ugochukwu 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”.
Agballah had since denied all the allegations against him, declaring that some members of the party were being used by the PDP to cause disharmony.
