APGA’s Unending Leadership Tussle

Onyebuchi Ezigbo writes that from the epic battle between Chekwas Okorie and Victor Umeh over control of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to the current leadership led by Victor Oye, the party is yet again facing another battle for survival ahead of the 2023 general election

All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is one political party that seemed to have earned itself the proverbial ‘Cat with nine lives’ reputation judging from the many leadership and legal battles it is wading through since its formation.

After surviving series of crisis of leadership in the past, the party has witnessed yet another round of leadership squabble which dragged the party into legal confrontation with an aggrieved group led by Jude Okeke and later Chief Edozie Njoku. Apparently the resurgent tussle is being propelled by the interest in the 2023 general elections and the desire to be part of the players.

After APGA had conducted it’s presidential primaries and elected a former Chief Judge of Anambra state, Prof. Peter Umeadi as the presidential candidate, the group led by Njoku held a parallel convention to elect its own presidential candidate in the person of the sacked pioneer national chairman of APGA, Chekwas Okorie, who has given an account of how he was drafted back into the leadership tussle in his former party.

Okorie while reacting to the call by the leadership of the party for his arrest by the Police, said in a statement that it was a deliberate attempt “to obfuscate a legitimate call for a just cause”.

“The call for my arrest is not only gratuitous, it is a preposterous demand that either lacks understanding of issues being canvassed or a deliberate attempt to obfuscate a legitimate call for a just cause:.

Okorie who claimed he only responded to the invitation by a splinter group led by Chief Edozie Njoku to come and rejoin the party, said  some people in the party became panicky because the truth has come out. He also said contrary to the claim that he was sacked by the party for anti party activities, he voluntarily left the party in 2012.

He said: “I founded APGA in 2002. None of these individuals were there. When brigands were sponsored to destroy APGA, and billions of naira spent to fight me, I chose to step aside so as not to destroy a vision that encapsulates the political aspirations of Ndigbo. I voluntarily surrendered the certificate of our great party to INEC in 2012.

“INEC wrote to me in 2009 to reaffirm my chairmanship of APGA. These are facts that can be checked at the relevant agencies. It is also in my book, APGA and the Igbo Question.

A delegation was led to my home to apologise and plead with me to return to the party I founded by Chief Edozie Njoku and the NWC. I really had no option but to accept and I re-registered as a member”.

The genesis of the current crisis could be traced to the build-up to the last general election in 2019 when the party held its national convention to re-elect national officers for a new tenure and subsequently proceeded to conduct primaries to chose candidates for the election.

In 2019, APGA National Chairman, Chief Victor Oye, after duly notifying the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the party’s plan for an elective national convention proceeded to hold same on May 29 in Awka, the Anambra state capital.

At the convention, all the members of the National Working Committee led by the national Chairman, Victor Oye, were re-elected for another four-year tenure. The convention also reconstituted members of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of APGA, under the chairmanship of the then Governor of Anambra state, Chief Willie Obiano.

While the convention of APGA in Awka went on smoothly and produced a leadership to run the affairs of the party for another four years, a splinter group led by Jude Okeke and Chief Edozie Njoku held another election  in Owerri, Imo state capital and claimed to have elected new leaders for the party.

In justifying his group’s action, Njoku claimed there was an experte order which stopped the APGA’s national convention at Awka.

In his argument, Njoku said  the court order first stopped the meeting by the APGA’s National Executive Coucil, (NEC) which took place on May 14, 2019 and which gave approval for the national convention that was held in Awka, thereby rendering the whole exercise null and void.

There was no evidence, that the splinter group led by Njoku had duly notified the INEC of the date and venue of it’s convention in Owerri as required by law, nor was the commission represented during the exercise.

However, the leadership of APGA led by its National Chairman, Chief  Oye had dismissed the claim by the Njoku group on the legality of the May 19, 2019 Convention held at Awka.

First, it said the Convention met the constitutional provisions of APGA one of which states that the Chairman “shall have powers to summon and preside over the meeting NEC, Convention and National Working Committee of the party”.

In this regard, Oye as the substantive national Chairman wrote to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to notify the commission of the party’s plan to hold an elective convention on May 19 as required by the Electoral Act. The letter stated the date and venue of the convention to be May 2019 and at the Prof. Dora Akunyili Memorial Women Development Centre in Awka.

As required by law, INEC sent a team to observe the proceeding at the APGA’s national convention in Awka during which Oye and other members of the National Working Committee were re-elected for another four-year tenure. As one of the Chieftains of the party said, it was not possible for INEC to send representatives to monitor the convention and to submit their report if the exercise was not sanctioned by or met the constitutional provisions.

Speaking on the activities of a splinter group led by Edozie Njoku, the national chairman of APGA said it is unfortunate that someone who is not a member of APGA will be claiming to be the chairman.

Oye said: “All the stories about factions in APGA were mere conjectures, they have no truth, they have no facts. All those people parading themselves as national leadership of the party are mere Interlopers, they are nothing but fraudsters. APGA has only one leadership under my direction. The security agencies ought to have arrested the illegal group to put paid to the activities”.  

It is pertinent at this point to examine the legality of the conventions that affirmed the re-election of the Oye-led national executive of APGA and the other one that produced the aggrieved group led by Njoku. The group had gone to court to challenge the emergence of Oye-led national executive committee of APGA at national convention.

The legal contest that gave rise to the latest challenge of the APGA leadership could be further traced to the court case instituted by Okeke. Okeke had challenged the authenticity of the Oye leadership at a Federal High Court in Jigawa where Judgment was given in his favour. However, the Jigawa court judgment was set aside by an Appeal Court in Kano for lack of jurisdiction and abuse of court process. Okeke then proceeded to the Supreme Court to seek nullification of the appellate court’s decision.

In the Supreme Court case reference No. SC/CV/687/2021, the apex court dismissed the Appeal filed by Okeke. The apex court affirmed the judgement of the Appeal court which declared Oye as the substantive national chairman of APGA. It also struck out application for joinder filed by Njoku. The apex court further awarded N1 million cost against the Appealants and in favour of APGA and Oye.

While responding to the claim of the Njoku group that the party leadership which emerged on the 31 of May 2019 in Awka was illegal, Oye said  such claim has no basis in law.

He also challenged the Njoku group to show evidence of its notification to the INEC for their convention and the party’s constitution which they were citing in their suit.

According to Oye, it was the APGA’s constitution ratified at the convention in Awka that the rebel group are quoting in their court case against the party and yet they claimed it was not authentic.   

He said  the Supreme Court had looked at all issues brought against his NWC by  Njoku and gave an unambiguous judgement affirming the Appeal Court ruling that recognized him and his National Working Committee (NWC) as the authentic and rightful national leadership of APGA.

From the above historical account of the fued in APGA, it appears that both Njoku and Okorie are playing the role of meddlesome interloper in a party where they have nothing at stake. In the words of Oye, the duo are, not members of APGA but part of a gang bent on reaping where they did not sow.

However, among the posers that Oye have left for his alleged traducers and which none of them has yet provided response to are: Where did the Njoku and his group purchase his nomination forms (if any) that qualified him to stand for election to the office of the national chairman in 2019 (as he claimed)? Can they show a copy of their nomination form duly stamped at the national secretariat of APGA? Who was the national Chairman of APGA that was in office when they held their national convention on May 31, 2019 in Owerri and who handed over to them the reins of authority of the party, if any?

Given that they held a national convention in Owerri, can they name the national officers of APGA in attendance. Was the national leader and Board of Trustees chairman of APGA, then Governor Willie Obiano in attendance at the national convention on May 31, 2019 in Owerri?

In all the suits the splinter group filed from 2019 to 2021, which constitution did it use? Did your convention in 2019 produce any constitution? Were they a party to the appeal filed by Okeke at the Supreme Court in which judgment was delivered by the court on October 14, 2021? If the answer is yes, publish a copy of the suit filed by  Okeke at the apex court. Perhaps the splinter group may need to respond to these issues raised by the Oye-led APGA before they can convince anyone of the seriousness of their contention.

With this recent development it shows that the party’s leadership crisis won’t end anytime soon, with the emergence of this other faction questioning the authentic leadership of the party.