To say that the tenure of the factional chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State, Ugo Agballa, has been dogged by controversies since his emergence is to state the obvious. In fact, even his emergence in a parallel congress of the party was stewed in controversy such that he could not be issued with Certificate of Return on the same day as the rest chairmen in February.
Given the circumstances of his emergence, virtually every critical stakeholder of the APC in his state has since deserted him, rendering him a cathedral without congregation or masquerade without drummers.
Worse, there are also the controversies emanating from the N238 million allegedly dolled out to the Enugu APC to fund House of Assembly, National Assembly, and governorship nomination and expression of interest forms in the state and the alleged $1.5 million APC national convention largesse that reportedly grew wings. These remain unresolved.
Unfortunately, rather than address these issues and play the right politics to put his house in order, Agballa has carried on like a man who pleasures in chasing rats around while his house is on fire. If he is not attacking former governor, Chimaroke Nnamani he is libelling the Enugu State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Peter Mbah or maliciously attacking his party men and about everyone and everything. And he goes about it in ways that call to question his “fit and proper test” in the legal profession.
In the process, he has jettisoned the things that should matter to him as chairman of a party in the run up to a general election to chase after things that further push his party into extinction in the state. While Agballa takes pleasure in talking about the PDP governorship candidate and chieftains, Enugu APC has no governorship candidate in the real sense of it. Although the Enugu governorship slot of the APC is filled at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the general perception is that Ugo Agballa and his governorship candidate, Chief Uche Nnaji, are running for business and the national campaign fund, not to win.
During the primaries’ window, Ugo Agballa and Chief Uche Nnaji fielded Robert Ngwu, who hails from Nike as the deputy governorship placeholder. But Ngwu not only hails from the same Enugu East senatorial zone as Uche Nnaji, both men are also from the Nkanu clan. But they could not replace Ngwu within the window allowed by the Electoral Act. The difficulty in finding a replacement is not surprising, given the ruinous state of the Enugu APC, the party’s unpopularity in the South East, and the perceived double-dealing tendencies of Agballa.
So, although they deceitfully unveiled and now parade George Ogara, who hails from Enugu North, as Nnaji’s running mate, Robert Ngwu remains the deputy governorship candidate of the APC. This can easily be confirmed from the final list of candidates published where Robert Ogbonna Ngwu’s name appears at serial number 278 as Enugu APC’s deputy governorship candidate.
TheCable
