Four months to the 2015 elections, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, which prides itself as the truly Igbo party, is still enmeshed in serious crisis in Imo State, 247ureports.com reports.
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Since February this year when the former minister for Interior, Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho joined the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in Imo State, the intrigues in the party have snowballed into crisis, with members of the party being at the receiving end of the climate of uncertainty that the crisis has unleashed on the party. Nevertheless, contending forces within the party seem to be battle-ready to either clip the wings of the cock or simply pitch their tent elsewhere as the journey to 2015 becomes fiercer. This was manifested last Monday, November 17, 2014, when a chieftain of the party, one Mr. Kennedy Onyemara went to court to stop Captain Ihenacho, who is a frontline governorship aspirant, from participating in the governorship screening of aspirants and primary election of the party billed to hold soon in the state.
Trouble started after the State Executive Committee and other machineries of the party endorsed the former minister as the sole governorship candidate of the party to the chagrin of his opponent, Okey Eze , who it was learnt was the brain behind the court action.
In the suit filed at a High Court in the Mbano/Etiti judicial division in Imo State, Onyemara asked the court for an interlocutory injunction restraining Ihenacho from further parading as a member of APGA.
The party chieftain also prayed the court to restrain Ihenacho from presenting himself before APGA screening committee or any other organ of the party in connection to the 2015 governorship election.
Onyemara further asked the court to restrain APGA, its agents and organs from screening Ihenacho for any purpose relating to the 2015 governorship election or allowing him to participate in the process, under the platform of the party.
In an order of the court issued Tuesday, the presiding Judge, Justice E.O. Agada among other things, ordered that the parties to the suit which had APGA and Capt. Emmanuel Ihenacho as first and second defendants respectively “are restrained from doing anything that will destroy or prejudice the subject matter of this suit till the interim injunction application is disposed of.”
In the case, adjourned to November 25, 2014, the court also granted Onyemara leave to serve the processes in the suit outside jurisdiction on the defendants. And also to serve the originating process and all other process by substituted means.
The court case came as some members of the party loyal to Mr. Okey Eze felt that the party structure had been hijacked by Iheanacho, who just left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, not less than eight months ago for APGA.
According to a member of the party loyal to Eze, Ihenacho cannot have his way as he did when he imposed the state and LGA executive councils on the party, saying “we will resist him until the real owners of the party take charge”.
It is evident that the endorsement has plunged the party into serious crisis, with Eze insisting that the action was illegal and that the action was out of place in a democracy and incompatible with the ideals of the party.
This is despite the fact that the chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Imo State, Barr. Peter Ezeobi, had insisted that Ihenacho’s endorsement as the APGA consensus candidate for the 2015 governorship election in the state was democratic and in line with the APGA constitution, adding that the signatories to the endorsement were majority of the leaders of the party.
He had said in an interview: “The endorsement of Capt. Ihenacho (rtd) was done by the leaders of the party and it is not only conventional but legal, democratic and in line with APGA constitution on nomination of aspirants for governorship election. When the National Working Committee of our party visited us recently, they also advised for us to go for a consensus candidate. Therefore the leaders endorsed Capt Ihenacho and forwarded the endorsement to me.
Loading ...“Accordingly, I have also forwarded it to the National Working Committee in line with the APGA constitution. The endorsement still stands. The rest remains for the leaders of the party at the national level to decide on. However, this does not foreclose primary election if need be.”
However, in order to frustrate that move, Eze was said to have sponsored the recent court action. This has in deed brought with it a new vista to the long standing problem of the party.
Interestingly, one thing common in the annals of the APGA history both at national and state level, observers have pointed out, is the long standing presence of crisis. Only recently, the state leader of the party, Chief Martin Agbaso dumped the party for the PDP, where he is currently aspiring to be governor of the state. His leaving the party, observers say, followed what people referred to as highjack of the party structures by Capt. Ihenacho, a new entrant to the party and he was said to have left with other structures of APGA still loyal to him.
Also before Agbaso left the party, APGA had been contending with factions in party. In fact, as it stands now, there are about three factions laying claims to the soul of the party in the state. Last August, the Imo State secretariat of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) turned to a battle ground as the Chief Victor Umeh-led faction and the Maxi Okwu group fought for the control of the party. This left in it trail injuries to many supporters, who gathered for a meeting and passersby.
It was learnt that trouble started immediately the interim chairman, Barr. Ezeobi, drove into the premises with security operatives. He was booed by angry members for sacking 14 council chairmen of the party without recourse to the State Working Committee (SWC).
Carrying placards, such as “Go Ezeobi go? “We reject you” “God will judge APGA national leaders”, “Mazi Okwu has defeated Umeh in Imo”, “Umeh must go”, among others, the protesters barricaded the entrance to the secretariat after vandalising the vehicles parked in the premises.
One of the protesting chieftains of the party, Charles Oguchialu, said: “We are grieving for our party because our men and women who laboured to put it on a solid foundation were sent packing by an individual who is new in the party.
“It is ironical that the party, which is propagating democracy, is confronted with dissolution without the slightest inkling of the SWC. The protest is a way to convey our feelings to the party chairman. Every local government should be treated on its merit in consultation with the SWC. A day before the controversial dissolution, an exco meeting involving local government party chairmen was organised without any discussion on dissolution, only for Ezeobi to announce the controversial dissolution the next day.”
Critics have slammed the party leadership in the state and at the national level for long standing crisis that has been blamed for the party’s degeneration from its former position as the truly Igbo party with better democratic ideals among other political parties in the state and country. There is fear by concerned members of the party that because of the current crisis and uncertainty in the party, APGA may not be able to win any election in the state come 2015 and prepare the way for its final extinction.
