Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
The purported suspension of Dr. Kingsley Ononogbu as the State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abia State, has been dismissed as fake news.
A chieftain of the APC, Hon. Kingsley Ngwaba, who stated this in Umuahia, also described as untrue, the alleged suspension of three other executive committee members of the party.
He condemned peddlers of the falsehood while urging members of the public to discountenance such rumour.
The APC chieftain was reacting to a claim by the erstwhile state publicity secretary of the party, Mr Okey Ezeala, purporting that the executive members of the party had been suspended.
Ezeala had in a live radio programme listed other “suspended” party leaders to include the state deputy chairman, Hon Grant Nwogu; the secretary, Chief Chidi Avaja; and the organising secretary, Deacon Obinna Atuonwu; adding that they were suspended by their respective ward executive committees for alleged anti-party activities.
Ngwaba, while expressing dismay over the “unfounded and fallacious statement,” said that Ezeala was only acting the script of those who betrayed the party during the last general election.
He further explained that their primary objective was to destabilise the party in the state by discrediting the executives in the eyes of the National Working Committee of the party, the members and the general public.
“I am not surprised that after working in concert with their sponsors in the night during the elections, they have found a willing tool in the former publicity secretary to continue their selfish agenda,” he noted.
The chieftain described Ezeala’s claim of having taken over the control of the party in the state in the absence of the four executives as most ridiculous and laughable, adding that the claim was a joke taken too far.
He, therefore, appealed to members of the party in the state to heed the advice the leader, High Chief Ikechi Emenike, gave to a delegation of the stakeholders while visiting him in his country home in the capital recently.
The delegation led by Nwogu had protested to Emenike over the appointment of Hon Donatus Nwankpa as replacement for the late national Welfare Secretary, Barr Friday Nwosu by the committee last Friday.
While expressing their anger at “the impunity displayed by the committee,” the stakeholders threatened “to seek legal redress for the imposition done without recourse to the state executive committee.”
But, Emenike, who was the State Coordinator of Tinubu/Shettima 2023 Presidential Campaign Council and the governorship candidate sued for peace, saying the party has internal conflict resolution mechanism to deal with crisis.
“It is only when you have exhausted all options that you can think of judicial remedy or all other initiatives,” said the leader of the party in the state.
He further advised them “not to pay too much attention to those who are deriding and making fun of them now but rather to stay focused and united.”
