How Fraud, Non- Accountability Led To APGA’s Failure In Abia Governorship Election – Okiyi
Almost two months after the March 18, 2023 governorship election, a chieftain of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia State, Ambassador Chigorom Okiyi, has accused the state party chairman, Reverend Augustine Ehiemere and three others of allegedly embezzling over N60million party funds.
Okiyi who is the Vice Chairman, Abia Central of the APGA, also alleged that the party’s governorship candidate, Professor Greg Ibe refused to release money for the elections because of the said embezzlement which in turn made the party lose the governorship election.
Buttressing further on the causes of the party’s failure, Okiyi noted that against what is seen on the outside, Professor Ibe was not interested in working with the SWC of the party led by Ehiemere due to lack of trust and competence among the players in the party.
“this time around (2023), we are certain that we failed because every arsenal are not together; things are not right, the leadership of the party led by Augustine Ehiemere, Onukwubiri, Emma Okoro- the legal adviser and Erondu who hijacked everything to themselves. It became obvious that they are clueless, they do not have vision, they are fraudulent, not being transparent and not giving into accountability.
“There is an issue of fraud; a whooping sixty something million or thereabout which Professor Greg Ibe intervened and asked them to tender an account for that; as I am sitting down here, no account has been rendered.”
“The issue of such amount of money being embezzled by just four persons, best known to them what they did with the money, it’s not something anybody will just sweep over. That affected Professor Gregory Ibe’s financial attention to them because he sensed that they have financial issues and literally stopped supporting the party where necessary, then the party became epileptic in affairs.
“….the leadership of the party led by Ehiemere is clueless.….”
“….they are just playing politics because Professor Greg Ibe didn’t bring out the money he ought to bring out for the running’s of the elections. He didn’t bring it out because the party, Ehiemere and his co are more interested in embezzling the money, that made the campaigns become a little epileptic” Okiyi said on Wednesday while featuring on Love FM programme “Open Parliament” monitored by ALL FACTS NEWSPAPER.