The Publicity Secretary of a faction of the All Progressives Congress in Abia State, Engr Mike Ozoemena, has warned that the rival group led by Hon Donatus Nwakpa, constitutes a threat to the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.
Dr. Emmanuel Ndukwe, whose group Ozoemena belongs, and that of Nwankpa emerged as parallel state executives of the APC in the peaceful congresses held at different locations in Umuahia, the state capital last month.
Ozoemena was reacting to the innauguration of Nwankpa along with 35 other chairmen by the outgoing National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, at the APC national headqurters in Abuja.
He said the congress that produced Nwankpa and members of his executive committee had earlier been restrained from doing so by an Abia State High Court sitting in Okpuala Ngwa in Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area.
Ozoemena said the court, presided over by Justice Collins Okoroafor, had also restrained the national headquarters from dealing with any lists of wards, local governments and state delegates of the party submitted to it by the Nwankpa-led executive.
According to him, participation of the Nwankpa-led executive committee, which he said was illegal going by the order, would invalidate the out-come of the forthcoming national convention of the party scheduled for Abuja this month.
“The first casulty of the invalidation would be no other person than our revered President Muhammadu Buhari, whose leadership of the country has brought remarkable changes and given the people hope,” he said.
Pointing out that this was why they had been accusing the other faction of working for the ruling Peoples Democrict Party to distabilse the party, he called for the immediate withdrawal of the recognition accorded it.
“We want to use this opportunity to once again condemn in its entirety the inauguration and to advise the headquarters reverse it in the interest of the party and not to create further divisions and rancour among the members,” he insisted.
The secretary said the chairman and the Convention Committee still had a window of opportunity to correct the mistakes by dealing with and recognising the dully elected Ndukwe-led committee out of respect for rule of law and justice.
