By CHARLES IWUOHA

The Leadership of All Progressives Congress (APC) Intellectuals Forum, Enugu State, has warned against acts and campaign of calumny against the APC Deputy National Chairman (South), Chief Emma Eneukwu.

This is contained in a statement made available to newsmen in Enugu on Monday jointly signed by its Coordinator, Chief Ezeugwu Nicholas; the Secretary, Dr Udeh Chidubem, and Publicity Secretary, Prof. Nnamani Ugochukwu.

“The attention of the leadership of APC Intellectual Forum has been drawn to a statement credited to the former Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly and a former Senatorial Candidate of APC in Enugu North Senatorial Zone, Hon. Eugene Odoh, recently.

“Odoh during his unguarded speech, called one of our own and APC Deputy National Chairman (South), Chief Emma Eneukwu, the major crisis catalyst in APC Enugu State.

“He accused him (Eneukwu) of imposing candidates on the party in some Local Government Areas such as Udenu, Igboeze North, Igboetiti and Ụzọ Uwani.

“These are all unfounded allegations and untrue about our exemplary leader and a man who upholds the APC principle to the letter,” the group said.

The statement said that instead of Odoh focusing on how to clean up the mess he created in the party, he decided to vilify Eneukwu to score cheap political goal.

According to the statement, “We are still trying to uncover what he intends to achieve by doing so in a meeting that our leader (Eneukwu) was not invited and also in a discussion that has no business with him.

“In 2021, Eneukwu in his political clairvoyant nature, saw what was going to happen to the zone, began the journey of making sure that APC produces her next state chairman from Enugu North Senatorial Zone.

“He (Eneukwu) individually contacted most of the party leaders in the zone, including, him, (Odoh).

“While doing this, Eneukwu made his friend, Dr Ben Nwoye, then state Chairman of the party and leaders from Enugu East Senatorial Zone his political enemies, because he wanted the party to move forward.

“However, Odoh and some stalwarts instead of aligning with Eneukwu, decided to circumvent and joined hands with others to fight him, all because Odoh wanted to become a National Officer,” he said.

The statement called on Odoh to desist from using Eneukwu’s name to score cheap political goals.

It said that Eneukwu had stood out for the progress of the party and had sacrificed a lot in the course of the years for the APC, even as a foundation member.

“It is very clear that he is still in limbo over Eneukwu’s landmark victory and successes in his office.

“We will not tolerate any act of calumny or vituperation against any of our own again, especially our highly and nationally respected leaders,” the Intellectuals said.

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