By Okey Ndiribe,   Assistant Political Editor

THERE are indications that the entire leadership of the Progressive Peoples Alliance ( PPA) may defect en-masse to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by next week. This development was confirmed last Thursday by a member of the Board of Trustees of  PPA, Dr. Sam Nkire in a telephone interview with Saturday Vanguard.

He disclosed that the entire leadership of PPA, including members of its Board of Trustees -of which former Abia State Governor Chief Orji Uzor Kalu is Chairman – was involved in the negotiations over the planned return of the PPA top hierarchy to the  PDP.

Giving further insight into the unfolding political development,  Dr. Nkire  stated that even the Governor of Abia State Chief Theodore Orji and Senator Uche Chukwumerije who last week  defected from PPA to the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) were in the know about the negotiations and are still being wooed to return to the PDP.

However, observers of political events in the country believe that if this scenario comes to pass, it   may signal the collapse of the  PPA  which Orji Kalu co-founded with Governor Theodore Orji- his successor in office. Orji had last week defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), along with Senator Uche Chukwumerije and  all  members of the State House of Assembly led by its Speaker Agwu U. Agwu.

Last year, the Governor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, had also defected from the PPA to the PDP. Not long after that, former Chairman of the party and one time governor of Cross River State, Chief Clement Ebri, had also resigned his position from the party, alongside  the former National Secretary.

The circumstances leading to the defection of Orji, Chukwumerije and the state law makers began unfolding few weeks ago  when the trio of Orji, Kalu and Chukwumerije were summoned by the National Working Committee (NWC) of PPA.

In the summons that was published in the media, the Abia governor was accused of inability to provide security and infrastructural facilities for  the people of the state while Chukwumerije was accused of persuading the Governor to dump the party.

Sources close to the Abia governor had disclosed that he was actually indisposed when he received the letter of summons and therefore requested to be given a period of two weeks to enable him to recuperate before presenting himself to the leadership of the party for explanations.

But the chairman of the party was said to have rejected the request and instead gave the governor a one week ultimatum to appear before the NWC.  It was learnt that what really led to the escalation of the crisis was the  publication of the charges that were levelled against the governor in a national newspaper.

The source further revealed that the governor’s loyalists considered the action of the party’s chairman who had unilaterally issued the query as being “the hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob”.

It was gathered that it was at this stage that pressure was piled on the governor to dump the party. On the day Governor Orji decamped from PPA and joined APGA, Dim chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was present,  accompanied by his wife, Bianca, Anambra state Governor Peter Obi; Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji; National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh and other chieftains of the party alongside  government officials and security men.

Ojukwu, who is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of APGA, left no one in doubt that he was still the generalissimo of the party and the number one leader in Igbo land when it was his turn to speak.

He screamed several times  at no one in particular: “ Let my people go”. He continued: “ I am obeying you; I have pledged that from today, it would be better for the people of Abia State.” He continued: “ I must always speak even if they don’t believe I can still speak. I am servant of God today. If it comes to fighting for  you, I will always do it.” He declared that he had come to liberate the people of Abia so that they could join the rest of their brothers in Igboland.

“Ochendo, from today, you are my son. Nothing will make me  bring down your hand that I will raise today. Wherever you go, nothing will happen to you because I am here, ” he said.

Governor Orji, who used the event to announce his defection from the Peoples Progressive Alliance ( PPA) to APGA,  thanked the people of Abia state for the support they had given to him, adding that what they had seen was a tip of the iceberg.

He continued: “ Today is a historic day in Abia because the people have heaved a sigh of relief. I am actually leaving PPA and joining APGA because I was pushed beyond the wall.”

He described APGA as a party in which members were their brothers keepers.

In his own speech, in which he threw his weight at the occasion, Senator Chukwumerije- who had been summoned along with governor Orji and his predecessor Orji Uzor Kalu -  told the audience that it was time to pull out of PPA which he described as a private family estate which had all along been paraded as a political party.

However, the immediate past Publicity Secretary of  PPA Mr Ben Onyechere narrated a different slightly different version of what actually transpired in the sinking party.

In an interview he granted to Saturday Vanguard last Tuesday, he said that what led to the crisis in PPA were the queries that were personally issued to Orji and Senator  Chukwumerije by the National Chairman of the Party.

Said he: “ This ought not to have happened. The Chairman did not consult with other members of the National Working Committee ( NWC) before issuing a query to Governor Orji. I have never seen anything like that in Nigerian politics.

After he did that, he called me one morning and asked me to meet him at our National Secretariat at Abuja. When I went to see him at his office, he threw a copy of the letter he wrote to the Governor at me and asked me to read it. After I read the letter, I felt raising an alarm at that stage was not the right thing to do.”

He continued:  “ What I decided to do was to keep quiet and find out what was really happening. Even the party’s Legal Adviser and most other members of the NWC  felt the same way.

The general feeling was that this man should have summoned a meeting of the NWC for us to discuss the issues involved before taking such a step. I felt it was unacceptable that he could present such a letter to members of the NWC after he had signed it and sent it to the Governor.”