Uche Amunike
Thugs in their hundreds invaded the All Progressives Congress, APC Secretariat in Enugu state, Tuesday, during Barrister Ben Nwoye’s interaction with the press, forcibly collecting cameras belonging to TVC and NTA reporters.
The thugs, who are suspected to be aggrieved members of the party, stormed the secretariat alongside some men carrying AK-47 and disrupted the State Working Committee meeting.
The TVC reporter and cameraman, even though they struggled with the thugs to stop them from collecting their cameras were eventually overpowered and taken to a destination where they were instructed to delete all that they had recorded.
The reporter, Dele Ajayi, decried how he was rough-handled by the thugs.
Said he: ‘This is terrible. They deleted everything I recorded. If they are having problems, they should resolve it and not fight the media’.
Recall that the State Chairman of the party, Barr Nwoye had announced the suspension of Honorable Eugene Odo, Flavour Eze, Ada Ogbu and El Aja as a decision of the State Working Committee of the party over anti-party activities during their Ward Congress.
He made it clear that the suspension was expedient, following the report and recommendation of the Investigative and Disciplinary Committee.
Nwoye had raised alarm over the disappearance of results sheets during their Ward Congress in Enugu on 30th July, 2021, saying that Dr Ijeoma Aridiogbu displayed the sensitive materials on Friday, but later packed them all and left.
‘This meeting was to discuss the preliminary report of investigative and disciplinary committee on the disappearance of result sheets during APC Ward Congress in Enugu State’.
‘Based on the report, the committee made the following findings, that there is high level conspiracy as some of the party leaders hijacked the result sheets through the Congress Committee Chairman, Dr Ijeoma Ariodiogbu, that Hon Eugene Odo, Ada Ogbu, Flavour Eze and Hon El Aja were directly in position of collecting fictitious names, that Eugene Odo, Princess Ada Ogbu and other co-conspirators influenced the chairman to hand over the sensitive materials to them’, Nwoye said.
‘Based on these findings, the committee made some recommendation, that Hon Eugene Odo, Flavour Eze, Princes Ada Ogbu and El Aja should be suspended from the party and that the investigation should continue to find out other high placed party members involved’.
‘That same report should be forwarded to Imo State APC to commence investigation on the activities of Dr Ijeoma during the Ward Congress in Enugu. The report should also be forwarded to National Chairman to investigate Dr Ijeoma over his conduct during the congress in Enugu’, he said.
He explained that the investigative and disciplinary committee was put together immediately the party leadership in the state observed the foul play which was orchestrated by Chief Anike Awogu, Dr Oby Aji as Secretary and Chief Chuks Adibe, as member.
His words: ‘During our investigation, we found out that the sensitive materials were disposed to the custody of Hon Eugene Odo who took those materials to South East secretariat of the party and seek the services of those who wrote reports for them. According to the report, Princess Ada Ogbu was in charge of collecting fake names from the 77 wards in Enugu East senatorial district, Hon Eugene Odo was vested with responsibility of collecting fake names from 102 wards in Enugu North, the Minister’s PA, Mr Flavour Eze collected fictitious name from Udi and Ezeagu comprising of 40 wards, while El Aja collected name from 41 wards from Aninri, Oji River and Awgu’, he said.
In reaction, Honorable Odo said that Barr Nwoye was suspended that morning and had no right or power to suspend anyone, stressing that he should be addressed as former chairman because over 40 members moved for the motion of his suspension.
On his part, Mr Flavour Eze described the suspension as baseless, saying that he voted and monitored the election with his principal, the Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama.
