Christopher Isiguzo in Enugu
Amid the controversy trailing last weekend parallel congresses of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a pro-democracy group within the party, the South East Progressive Alliance (SEPA) wednesday canvassed for the cancellation of the entire process in the South-east.
SEPA in a statement made available to THISDAY in Enugu and signed by its Coordinator, Hon. Kennedy Ufere and Secretary, Onyeka Agbo, insisted that the entire process was compromised from the beginning.
This however, came as chairmen who were elected in one of the parallel congresses in Enugu endorsed the incumbent State chairman, Ben Nwoye as their sole candidate for the chairmanship position.
They also endorsed the entire members of the state working committee for second term in office.
The adoption and endorsement was sequel to the formal declaration of Nwoye to run for second term, in a ceremony where he presented his scorecard to the party faithful.
But SEPA in their statement insisted that it was totally undemocratic for those who are taking part in an election to be given powers to conduct the same election.
“We totally condemn the purported waiver granted to the incumbent National, State, Local Government and Ward officers to stand for election without resigning from their positions. This is totally undemocratic and against the provisions of the APC constitution.
“The only way we can have free, fair and transparent congresses is for all of them to resign and fresh exercise organised. Anything short of this will result in a major crisis in APC at all levels.
“We the progressives in APC are demanding for the total cancellation of the entire parallel congresses in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States. Senator Osita Izunaso cannot be organising an election where he is a candidate and we expect to have credible election.
“In Enugu, we were told of how the chairman of the congress committee told party members that they were directed by the NWC to deal with only the state chairman, Nwoye who is a candidate in the election. This is the height of deceit and we shall not accept it,†the statement noted.
Meanwhile, Nwoye was yesterday adopted as the sole candidate of his faction of APC for the chairmanship position ahead of the State Congress billed for this Saturday.
Leading the local government chairmen in the endorsement at the state secretariat of the party, the coordinating chairman of APC local government chairmen in the state and chairman of APC in Oji River Local Government Area, Mr. Benson Ifeanyichukwu Eze, said that without Nwoye, APC would have gone under in the state a long time ago. He alleged that some people were planted to distract Nwoye to prevent him from achieving his objective of turning Enugu Sate from Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) state, to APC state.
His achievements according to him included attracting former PDP heavy weights as well as over 295, 000 fresh members into the party during a membership drive in 2017 alone. He named the new former PDP big politicians to include; the immediate former Governor of the State, Sullivan Chime; former Senate President, Ken Nnamani; former governor of old Anambra state, Jim Nwobodo; immediate former Speaker of the state Assembly, Rt. Hon. Eugene Odoh, business tycoon, Emperor Baywood Chris-Ibe; former national secretary of PDP, Mr. Rex Onyeabor and former guber candidate, Chief Gbazuagu Nweke.
