Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi
By Onyebuchi Ezigbo
Indications have emerged that the National Assembly Caucus of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) is facilitating a resolution of the crisis in the party.
The leader of a faction of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, Alhaji Sadiq Massalla, told journalists Wednesday that a joint peace committee made up of the party’s lawmakers in the National Assembly and some eminent party leaders have swung into action to explore a lasting solution to the intra-party squabble afflicting APGA.
“The committee has elected to see both parties to the conflict and thereafter convene a joint peace talk in Awka. It was as part their fact-finding mission that they met Umeh Wednesday to hear his own side of the story after which we shall also meet with them,” he said.
He said the peace move was initiated at a stakeholders meeting held in Enugu during which APGA legislators in the National Assembly led by Hon. Eddy Mbadiwe volunteered to intervene to resolve the crisis.
Massalla said the stakeholders had agreed on the setting up of a joint peace committee of the National Assembly caucus and eminent party leaders to be coordinated by for Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ambassador Frank Ogbuewi.
Massalla described as deceitful the impression given to the effect that the meeting of some lawmakers with Umeh amounted to an endorsement of his leadership.
Rather Massalla said the message of the legislators took to Umeh was that there is an urgent need for the restructuring of APGA and that the current personalisation of the party must stop.
“The caucus insisted on the need for openness in the party so as to allow more entrants into the party. The party they maintained must be repositioned for it win elections, removed from the clutches of individuals and made to have more national outlook,” he said.
The leader of the APGA opposition group also rejected the endorsement of the Umeh leadership by the 36 state chairmen of the party, describing the action as mere propaganda which cannot last the test of time.
On the alleged linking of the Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi to the current crisis in APGA, Massalla said it is unfortunate that Umeh has chosen to disparage Obi in a desperate effort to install his successor in office.
APGA had witnessed series of verbal exchanges between the national leadership led by Chief Victor Umeh and some aggrieved members of the National Executive Committee of the party who accused Umeh and the National Secretary, Alhaji Sani Shinkafi of not being transparent and accountable in the running of the affairs of the party.
Although, Umeh has the majority of the NEC members on his side and equally the endorsement of party chairmen at the state level, the opposing group appears unrelenting in their quest for the restructuring of the party.