From Chuks Moses, Awka
▪issue one year ultimatum to party
It was a hectic controlling the visible anger that members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Anambra State displayed at the interactive Roundtable meeting while awaiting the arrival of Vice President Yemi Osibanjo in Awka.
One after the other, chieftains of the party lamented their ordeal in the hands of the ruling party, which they alleged was fast turning into a party for the northern region of the country.
Incidentally, the APC perfor.ed most woefully in the South-west geo-political zone in the last elections.
The first salvo was fired by a former member of the Federal House of Representatives, Chief Fort Dike who represented Ihiala. He lamented that he would have preferred to speak with the VP and other leaders in his entourage in audience so that they hear it first hand.
He was sharp and direct, “Our members are hungry, angry and ashamed at the way we are being treated in Anambra state as members of APC. This is the first time since I joined politics in 1979 that members of the ruling party would be so relegated.
According to him, “party democracy is never run by gangs, cliques or cabals.” He was carried shoulder high as the audience applauded.
Dike pointed out that APC is at the centre but members in the state are all in pains, suffering bitterly and gnashing their teeth. “It’s like the members, especially in the state are being deceived, as there were no jobs, no appointments or any way of carrying the people along,” he said.
Chief Olisa Onyeka, a key national board member of the party went a step further to request if his presentation would be stepped down until Prof Osinbajo and his team arrived. But he went ahead still to request for four hundred (400) board appointment slots for the state. In his view, Anambra has only 326 electoral wards and if each ward gets a slot, it would go a long way to buoy the electoral fortunes of the party in the state, even leading to the clinching of the gubernatorial seat in the in next poll.
He noted that with the way the party is administered, it has been made to look like a regional northern party. “The way the party and the federal government affairs are being run has rendered APC a regional party. We have been so sidelined in the scheme of things that it is really in doubt whether any of the leaders is thinking of how to shore up the party in the state and zone”. It is an ugly situation, he added.
He gave the APC leadership a year’s ultimatum to change and improve on the welfare of her members in the state or there would be no more APC in the state. He said that while the party prides itself on “Next Level”, it’s “Last Level” in the state.
The former Deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mike Ugwa, wondered why even key policies and programmes of APC including Trader Moni, Schools Feeding and other such programmes were handed over to opposition parties. He said it has brought a lot of shame and disdain to members of the party.
A former member of the State Assembly (Awka North), Mrs Rebecca Udorji, lamented, like others, that the Speaker of the House of Representstives, Femi Gbajabiamila, just handed over an appointment to a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance(APGA) -Chief Anayo Nnebe instead of a member of APC. She wondered why the party is not attempting in anyway to carry APC members in the state along.
She urged Gbajabiamila to reverse himself and pick at least the party member who Nnebe contested with for the Representatives seat and lost in the last election. She insisted that things must change if the party would survive in the state at all.
Mrs Kudi Ogbogu said the party is not doing well in Anambra because members are treated like outsiderd adding that the party headquarters and office holders in Abuja also channels whatever that is due to the state to the opposition parties. These must change, if the president and the party leadership want APC to survive in the state,she added
