The leadership crisis rocking the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has deepened with the adoption of the Owerri convention which produced a new National Working Committee (NWC) which is different from the Victor Oye-led executive of the party.

The factional leadership declared the parallel convention held by the Victor Oye-led executive illegal and accused the party’s factional chairman of extorting hundreds of millions of naira from different people in exchange for the party’s 2019 governorship ticket in Imo State.

The issues which were laid bare at a media briefing in Abuja on Saturday also include the letter said to have been written by the party’s former chairman, Senator Victor Umeh, to Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State, wherein he intimated the latter of several petitions before him against Chief Oye over the alleged fraudulent transactions.

According to a resolution by one of the party’s elders, “We also reviewed the patriotic letter of Senator (Dr.) Victor Umeh, OFR, addressed to the executive governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, who doubled as national leader and BoT chairman of the party, alerting him of the gathered reports of the conduct of Dr. Victor Ike Oye (former national chairman), on gross financial impropriety.”

According to Senator Umeh’s letter to the governor, as reproduced by the joint stakeholders, Victor Oye, in connivance with one Chinedu Obidigwe, allegedly negotiated and collected a combined sum of N754.5 million and an SUV said to be worth N50 million from five different governorship aspirants, including a former governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim.

The letter also disclosed that many of the alleged victims had petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with a view to recovering their money and items from Victor Oye, adding that he had resorted to paying some of them piecemeal.

At the meeting jointly held by the National Stakeholders Forum and the newly elected congress chairmen of the party from the Owerri convention, they noted the illegality of the congress purportedly held by Victor Oye since it came after his tenure as party chairman had expired.

They said: “We found that the purported dissolution was illegal, as the leadership lacks the constitutional right to do so, totally runs counter to Articles 12 (14)(k)(I)(m)(n), and 19(3) of APGA constitution 2014 (as amended). BoT was inaugurated on the 6th of June, 2015, together with NWC. That means any envisaged tenure expiration would have been June 6th 2018, not on the 14th of May 2019.

“We resolved that it was done in bad faith, and an escape measure to avoid the extraction of response to the BoT letter of 29th April, 2019, calling for a proper NEC meeting to address all vexed issues.

“We resolved that the decision of the congress chairmen to conduct congresses within a constitutional date so as to preserve and protect the party from falling into great constitutional crisis was perfectly in order.

“And for not carrying out the directives of Dr. Victor Oye to hold congresses on 22nd, 23rd, and 24th of May, 2019, clearly shows they were not bound by the court order that stopped the decisions of the purported NEC meeting of 14th May, 2019

“We, the elders of the party and national stakeholders, hereby give a nod to the convention of Owerri, and give express approval and consent as the authentic convention, in line with the doctrine of necessity.”

The 28-man National Working Committee (NWC), according to the faction, has Chief Edozie Njoku as its national chairman; Dr. Mic Adams as deputy national chairman (South); Alhaji Adamu D. Musa as deputy national chairman (North), while Dr. Polycarp Gonkon is national secretary. (Daily Independent)

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