Following the cancellation of the zonal rally of the All Progressives Congress(APC), scheduled to hold today, 30th April, 2021 at Michael Okpara Square, Enugu state, it has been alleged that the reason for postponing the rally as been purported, is not the main reason.
Senator Ken Nnamani, GCON, the South-East Representative and Member, National Caretaker/ Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the APC, had announced that the rally was postponed as a result of the security situation in the country.
“Owing to prevailing security challenges, the commissioning of the Ultra-Modern South East Zonal Secretariat and the South East Zonal Grand Rally scheduled for Friday April 30, 2021, are hereby postponed. A new date will be announced later. We regret all traces of inconvenience caused.”
According to a report by an online media, journalist101, sources close to the party in the zone said the reason given by the former president of the Senate wasn’t the only reason the rally was called off.
A party chieftain from Abia state who doesn’t want his name in print said the rally couldn’t go ahead because “the fund provided by APC governors in the zone were diverted by some of the leaders of the party.”
He also accused one of the Ministers from the South East of using his cronies to hijack all the committees and sidelined all the true members of the party that should be at the helm of planning the rally.
Another member of the party and a close association of one of the party chairmen said the rally can’t hold because all the state Chairmen weren’t part of the planning and this infuriated them.
“I don’t know if money is at the centre of this disagreement but I can tell you for sure that all the caretaker Chairmen are angry with the organisation of the rally. They don’t know how the event is being planned and they aren’t taking this lightly. I won’t be surprised if they were even the ones that told the party leadership that they aren’t part of the event which led to the cancellation.”
‘The N150M Saga’
Another member of the party said the major bone of contention is the one hundred and fifty million naira released by a governor and the failure to use the money judiciously.
“Some people just sat down and shared this money amongst themselves and you want people to keep quiet?” the source said.
Continuing, he asked; “What was the 150 million given to the party by one of our governors used for?”
“All the members of the committee can’t account for the monies given to them. Even after it’s confirmed that the rally won’t hold, these people can’t even refund the sum they collected because it has been squandered.
“One of them even said they have to kill him first before he will return the money. He also said that the big men that took a larger chunk of the money should return their own first before they ask him to return his.
“One of the major things that cost a lot of money in events like this is accommodation and I can tell you authoritatively that a governor offered to pay for over 100 hotel rooms and you will begin to wonder, where did all the money go to.”
The party chieftain who spoke to us from Imo State said with this attitude, APC can’t grow beyond how its right now in the zone. He also said that the rally might not hold again and the postponement is just a lighter way of calling the “shame” off because that decision came from top hierarchy of the party.
We reached out to the head of the publicity committee, Ginika Tor to get her reaction to these claims and understand why her earlier scheduled press conference failed to hold.
Mrs Tor said: “The press briefing scheduled for today(28th April) was originally designed to hype the event through the media mileage and it was to host not just I and members of publicity committee but the entire planning committees including Most Distinguished Senator Ken Nnamani, then when I got the call for the postponement of the event, I reached out to Senator Ken and he confirmed that it was necessary owning to the prevailing security challenges.
“Meanwhile, he has also issued an official statement to this effect. However the press briefing was postponed because the actual essence has been defeated so we opt to postpone so we can have the official press release of our leader first before proceeding with the press briefing hopefully with a new date in hand.”
Responding to the question of the fund from South East APC governors causing division between the committees and State Chairmen of APC, Mrs Tor said “I’m not aware of any such thing.
When contacted, Dr. Ben Nwoye, the caretaker Chairman of Enugu APC and the host chairman said he had no comment and forwarded a message announcing the postponement of the rally to us.
The message read: “Sad to inform you that the rally slated for this Friday, April 30, 2021, has been postponed indefinitely. A new date will be announced. I am deeply sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused you.”
journalist101.
