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Nigeria: Okorie Sues for Peace in APGA , Discontinues Cases in Court
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Vanguard (Lagos)
22 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Chioma Gabriel
Lagos
The factional national chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA,Chief Chekwas Okorie, has sued for peace amongst the warring factions in the party. Speaking Wednesday in Abuja.
in a world press conference addressed by him, Okorie pointed out that it is approximately 40 months that Chief Victor Umeh, the former National Treasurer, led about five other members of the National Working Committee to announce the change of the leadership of APGA in a manner characteristic of a coup d'etat.
Okorie noted that the party reacted to the development by taking steps to give Okorie fair hearing in order to understand what led to their rebellion. But rather than take advantage of this to reconcile themselves to the party, they became rather combative, recalcitrant and unrelenting. "Malicious allegations of misappropriation of party funds and other unsubstantiated accusations were heaped on me and the leadership of the party. What looked like a minor revolt that could be resolved through dialogue soon developed into major crisis of unprecedented proportion. At the last count over 50 full page sponsored advertisements had appeared in various Nigerian newspapers with the sole aim of smearing my person and discrediting my leadership of APGA.
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"Nothing was spared in financial expenditure, blackmail, intrigue and vicious campaign of calumny in order to capture the soul of the party. The turn of event compelled us to institute a number of legal actions in order to use legal and constitutional means to halt what was clearly the biggest political brigandage of all times. "While the various suits lasted in courts, we did not relent in seeking avenues for reconciliation. It is on record that 15 of such reconciliation initiatives were rebuffed by Victor Umeh and his sponsors most arrogantly." Okorie regretted the damage the crisis did to the party describing it as monumental and heart-breaking. "From a political party that scored appreciable number of electoral victories with little or no resources in the 2003 general election, the party plummeted to zero result in all elections in the 2007 general elections.
This ugly picture is most prominent in Anambra State where the party formed the state government, and in spite of the advantages of incumbency, recorded zero result in the 2007 general election resulting in the rival Peoples Democratic Party winning all the 30 seats in the State House of Assembly, 11 out of the 12 House of Representatives seats and all the 3 Senatorial seats contested."
He described as public knowledge the fact that on 29th February, 2008, five Supreme Court Justices in a unanimous judgment, dismissed the appeal filed by Chief Victor Umeh and Alhaji Sani Shinkafi to truncate Suit No. FHC/A/CS/478/05 between Chief Chekwas Okorie & APGA versus Prof. Maurice Iwu & INEC which has reached the concluding stage of hearing.
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