The dust raised last week by the defection of Chief Enyinnaya Abaribe, Senator representing Abia South Senatorial District in the upper legislative chamber to ADC, is yet to settled, just as the trouble it is brewing for the Senator may not end soon.

Last week, Senator Abaribe had joined other senators particularly those from the People’s Democratic party (PDP), in announcing their defection from their former party, to ADC.

However, when it came to the turn of Senator Abaribe, the Senate President, Chief Godswill Akpabio asked why he was leaving the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), when there is no crisis in the party that brought him to the Senate.

Abaribe, replying, said he took the decision because he was sacked by his party, to which the Senate leadership gave him till the next plenary session to produce evidence of his sack from APGA.

However, speaking with Daily Sun on the issue, the Abia State Chairman of APGA, Chief Sunday Onukwubiri said emphatically that Senator Abaribe was not at any point in time, expelled from the party.

Onukwubiri stated that what the state chapter of the party did was to suspend Abaribe when he engaged in serious anti party activities and that at no time was the suspension turned into expulsion or sack.

“We never expelled Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, there is certain offence a party member will commit, you expel him, what we did was suspending him.

“Suspension is constitutional and there is also constitutional provision for expulsion. Suspension is a sorts of cautioning a member for doing what is not good, then if he continues on that, further actions will be taking on that person.”

Giving insight on what led to Abaribe’s suspension in the first place, Onukwubiri said, “When we noticed that Abaribe was playing anti party activities, not once, not twice, even to the extent that a secretary of another came to a Radio station in Umuahia and said that Abaribe was not only a member of their party, but a leader of that particular party.

“The man equally said on Radio they had a kind of MoU with the Senator. After that, we sent Abaribe message giving him 24 hours to refute that statement, he did not do that, we added another 24 hours, making it 48 hours, he did not do anything, maybe to him, we are kids.

So, there was nothing we could do than to invoke the relevant section of the Constitution of the party and suspended him from the party, but we never expelled him”, Onukwubiri added.

The APGA state chairman said they were waiting for Senator Abaribe to meet the party leadership, to get the matter resolved and the suspension lifted, when he instead, tendered his letter of resignation from APGA.

“After three months of that suspension, in December 2025, he submitted his resignation letter.

“Let me ask Nigerians this question, if the party expelled him as he wants his fellow Senators and Nigerians to believe, why did he come back to write letter of resignation? If any person is expelled from any association, has he the right again to write resignation letter?

“The leadership of the Senate asked him to go and rethink, if Abaribe were honest to himself, he wouldn’t have mentioned the word “expulsion” or “sack” from the party while trying to defend himself on the Senate floor. Let him bring the letter we gave him in September, 2025 and let him also bring a copy of the letter of his resignation.

“If the Senate is in doubt, they can call the National leadership of our party for clarification because they have the letter of our suspension and his letter of resignation. Three months after his suspension, he resigned.

Onukwubiri revealed that a week before the Senate debacle, based on Abaribe’s letter of resignation, he held a press conference in Aba, demanding that the Senator should vacate his seat since there is no crisis whatsoever in APGA.

“Based on his letter of resignation, since there’s no crisis in APGA that would warrant his leaving the party, we held a press conference in Aba, demanding that he should vacate the Senate seat he is occupying because the mandate according to the Constitution, belongs to the party.

“We demanded also that Hon Mascot Ikwuechegh who went to the House of Representatives on the crest of APGA to represent Aba North/Aba South Federal Constituency and also defected to another party, should equally vacate his seat. He defected to Labour Party (LP), he should not leave a party that is not in crisis and move over to a crisis-ridden party and be allowed to remain in the House.”

Speaking further, Onukwubiri said, “This is a constitutional issue, what we are saying is that there is no crisis in our party that will warrant them to leave to another party. The two Chambers of the National Assembly should deal with both Senator Abaribe and Hon Ikwuechegh as the law demanded, they should vacate their seats.

Raging in anger, Onukwubiri said, “This a man that rode on APGA crest to the National Assembly and has not for once, for over two years, called any party meeting. As I speak with you, even before he was suspended, our party does not have office in his Ward, LG and at the Senatorial district level, yet, we still accorded him the respect as the leader of the party.”

Asked if the party would be considering giving Abaribe an expulsion letter, at least to save the day for the Senator, Onukwubiri shot back, “Who will give him that expulsion letter? He dare not come to me and if he goes to any other person, he will be committing another offence.

“Senate gave him one week to produce letter of his expulsion, I stand to tell you that any letter gotten about his expulsion, is fake.”

Onukwubiri said APGA is solidly in support of what the Senate is doing which he said is in line with the law.

He asked the House of Representatives to equally toe the same line in the case of Hon Mascot Ikwuechegh who he said defected to LP when there’s no crisis in APGA.

He contended that the seats the two lawmakers are occupying are mandates given to APGA as a party, and that they should vacate them.

Meanwhile, APGA, Abia chapter said it has uncovered a secret move by Senator Abaribe to recruit people who are no longer members of the party, to raise for him a fake and illegal letter purported to have sacked him in September, 2025.

A statement by Chukwuemeka Nwokoro, Publicity Secretary of APGA in Abia warned that anybody or group of persons who would indulge in such criminal act, would face the music.

The statement read in part, “This is to inform the general public, Abians and particularly the Senate that it has come to the notice of APGA leadership in Abia state that senator Enyinnaya Abaribe has started secret movements trying to recruit people who are no longer members of the party, people who were either suspended from the party or resigned their membership of the party, to come together and raise for him a fake and illegal letter purported to have sacked him in September, 2025.

“This move is to cover the lies (that he was sacked in September, 2025) he told the Senate with the intention of deceiving Senate members to accept his unconstitutional defection to another party knowing fully well that APGA has no element of crisis in all facets of the party’s leadership which is the only basis for defection

“Let it be known that Senator Abaribe was neither sacked nor expelled from the party, Senator Abaribe resigned from the party on the 30th of December, 2025, and submitted his resignation letter to the Ahiaba ward 5 chairman of Obingwa LGA.

“APGA is warning all those involved in this act of fraudulence to desist from it or face the consequences.”

The party insisted that Abaribe wouldn’t have written letter of resignation if actually the APGA sacked him as he is claiming.

When contacted, Senator Abaribe’s media aide, Uchenna Awom forwarded some documents which basically was the letter suspending his principal from the party. (The Sun)

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