The All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has declared that the removal of its national chairman, Mr. Victor Oye was done to rescue the party.
Although Oye is still laying claim to the position, the party said his case was foreclosed.
The National Working Committee of the party had earlier this month suspended Oye alongside the party’s deputy national chairman (North), Alh.
Abubakar Adamu and deputy national chairman (South), Chief Uchenna Okogbuo. They were all indicted for several constitutional breaches.
Speaking to journalists in Enugu after APGA NWC members from the South-East paid him a solidarity visit, the acting national chairman of the party, Hon. Nwabueze Okafor said Oye remained suspended pending when he had purged himself of all the allegations that led to his sack.
Okafor said the unconstitutional actions taken by Oye were enough to have made the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, deregister the party.
He maintained that contrary to Oye’s claims, his suspension was done clearly in line with the relevant sections of the party’s constitution.
Okafor declared, “the suspended national chairman does not understand the constitution of the party; in article 20 of the constitution, it was clearly stated that a national officer who is found guilty of misconduct can be suspended indefinitely until the matter is resolved; and that is what we have done
“He remains suspended until he clears himself of the allegations. So, I urge our members across the country to work assiduously to put our party together.”
While justifying the removal of the national officers, the acting chairman stated that it was a move to save the party from extinction.
“You all are aware that the party was drifting on the precipice and there was need for a quick intervention to save the party; that’s what the National Executive Committee did by suspending the national chairman and two other officers.
“Together they had ensured that the party remained comatose in the last 16 months; it was sixteen months of no activity, we never had a NEC meeting, which was enough for the INEC to deregister the party, we had only 3 NWC meetings, as against the provisions of our constitution, which states that the NWC shall meet monthly.
“It was also a period where there was no transparency in the financial dealings of the party, the national financial secretary, the national treasurer and the national auditor did not know what was happening in the party; nominations were given without any guideline as stated in constitution of the party, in which we had a situation where the national chairman unilaterally dissolved the Edo State Working Committee of the party without a recourse to the NWC as stipulated in our constitution; all constitutional provisions were observed in the breach.
“So, the party has been retrogressing and suffering electoral embarrassment;
we had a case in Edo State where our party scored less than 1000 votes; he was a candidate that was known to the NWC members; in Ondo State, even the gubernatorial candidate too is not a product of the NWC; the NWC led by me now had decided to revisit it; we had an NWC meeting last week where we reversed the unilateral dissolution of SWC in Edo and the suspension of the chairman; and we are equally revisiting the Ondo State primaries because the conduct did not follow our guidelines, and the NWC never met to talk of guidelines”, he further stated.
Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Mr. Smart Iheoma, who is the Assistant national publicity secretary of the party, said “we are here on solidarity visit to our acting national chairman;
we already know the former national chairman was suspended; right now, we are on the process of rebuilding the party.”
Asked whether he was not worried over the timing of the crisis considering that the Anambra State governorship election was close, he replied: “Why will I say I am worried? It is a process to reposition the party, it has nothing to do with the Anambra election, the governor, Chief Willie Obiano has performed so creditably and there is no doubt about the fact that he will get the second term ticket and the party will support him totally. So, the development has nothing to do with the guber election.”
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