APGA: Umeh’s faction to merge with PMP

By Enyim Enyim

Onitsha— Governor Peter Obi of Anambra state and the factional national chairman of the All Progressive Peoples Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh may have resolved  to join the People’s Mandate Party on a merger agreement following the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) decision to hand over the original forms for governorship aspirants for the 2010 election to Chief Checkwas Okorie faction of APGA.

Investigations by Vanguard revealed that the leader of the party, Chief Arthur Nwankwo, weekend played host  to the emissaries sent to him in Enugu by Umeh  to work out a mutual consensus  and understanding before it could be made public.

The chairman of INEC, Prof  Maurice Iwu,  had last week  issued the original forms CF001 and CF002B to Okorie’s faction of APGA, closing the door for  Umeh’s faction.

Already, this development, Vanguard learnt, has led to a face-off between Alhaji Shinkafi and Okorie, while the court proceedings filed by Umeh last week, may be frustrated at the courts due to time limitation.

It will be recalled that 14 other political parties, including Labour Party recently  approached Obi for candidature, but it was gathered that he insisted on running on an Igbo party with a credible structure on ground, which wouldl be  acceptable to Anambra people, in order to challenge the strong Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) network on ground.