Speaking to correspondents at the Enugu airport yesterday, after different closed-door parleys with APC chieftains, one led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama, and another which held at the instance of Chief Jim Nwobodo, the Leader of the breakaway “Ebeano-APC”, Rt. Hon. Barrister KGB Oguakwa, a former two term Member of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, confirmed Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani’s defection to the PDP describing it as an unexpected outcome from Gov Ugwuanyi’s desperate rapprochement through which Ugwuanyi sought unsuccessfully to remove the Ebeano structure from the APC equation in Enugu. Oguakwa said “ Chimaroke knew of every detail and supported our move to the APC”.
In an apparent reference to the refusal of a major block of the ebeano political structure to leave APC with Nnamani, Oguakwa described his block of teeming followers christiened “Ebeano-APC” as a reliable and major ally of President Muhammadu Buhari in Enugu State which will work assiduously with Director-General of the President’s Campaign, Rotimi Amaechi, Nigeria’s Minister of Transportation, to achieve victory in 2019.
It will be recalled that Oguakwa was the strongest, most visible and most loyal supporter and protégée of Nnamani all through the latter’s political travails from 2007 till September 2018 when Nnamani suddenly defected, in a move which many across Nigeria have described as a needless stab in Oguakwa’s political back.
Addressing cheering Party faithful at an event in his traditional political turf of Enugu’s Greater Awgu area on Wednesday, hosted by the suave and flamboyant business man, billionaire philanthropist and APC Financier, Emperor Baywood Ibe, Oguakwa acknowledged Nnamani as a “still respected lifelong benefactor, associate and close friend” but restated very strongly that “I and my followers in Ebeano-APC have joined this “progressive coalition of the willing” to unseat Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and uplift the South East stake in Buhari’s Nigeria” vowing that, having been abandoned by Nnamani “we shall not return to Egypt”.
Chairman of the APC in Enugu State, Dr. Ben Nwoye, speaking at the event, expressed delight at the resilience of Hon Oguakwa, describing him as a towering giant of solid character, hardwork and integrity. Nwoye who confirmed the unabated surge of entrants from Ebeano into the Party in all the 260 Wards in the State described Nnamani’s defection as “unexpected, ill-advised, ill-timed and ill-fated”.
