BY Tony Edike

ENUGU-LEADERS of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in South-East zone, Thursday, reaffirmed their support for the national leadership of the party under Chief Victor Umeh, stressing that those calling for his removal were disgruntled former members who no longer had any stake in the party.

The party leaders, who rose from their zonal meeting in Enugu yesterday, also dissociated themselves from the purported dissolution of the party’s National Working Committee and the setting up of an interim national executive committee said to have been sponsored by a group of former members who claimed to be the party’s stakeholders.

In a resolution signed by APGA National Vice Chairman in the zone, Chief Morgan Anyalechi, Zonal Secretary, Mr. James Alaka and Messrs Onapuragu Prince Ukaegbu, Comrade Jerry Obasi, Mr. Okechukwu Nkoloagu, Prince Cletus Nwaka and Chief Mike Kwentoh, Chairmen of the party in Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Anambra States respectively, the party categorically stated that its leadership at all levels “are intact and cohesive under the firm, accepted and popular control of Chief Victor Umeh.”

The resolution reads: “The South East zone of APGA hereby dissociates itself from activities of the group led by Chief Onwuka Ukwa.  The purported dissolution of the National Working Committee of APGA and other APGA structures nationwide by the self-styled “Stakeholders” is laughable as there is no such thing authorized by the APGA constitution.

“The names paraded in the purported Interim National Executive Committee established by the group are non-members of our party. Indeed the said Hajiya Cengiz Rakad (named as interim National Chairman) was a member of Citizens Popular Party, CPP, and its Vice Presidential candidate in 2007 and later resigned midway during the elections to join the PDP. Chief Frank Orjiakor (appointed interim Deputy National Chairman South) is a lecturer at Federal University of Technology, Owerri, and a former National Organizing Secretary of CPP while Dr. Mic Adams was expelled at the National Convention of APGA in 2006 at Nike Lake Hotel Enugu. The other six members of the purported interim NEC are members of the defunct Chekwas Okorie’s faction of APGA.”

They explained that the masterminds of the unconstitutional acts had been expelled from the party and therefore lacked the locus standi to issue or initiate any action within the party.