Thugs invade Enugu APC Secretariat as party suspends ex-speaker, others

Political thugs in their numbers on Tuesday stormed the Enugu State All Progressives Congress (APC) Secretariat at GRA, Enugu and disrupted the State Caretaker Executive Committee meeting.

This came as the party announced the indefinite suspension of a former speaker of the State House of Assembly, Eugene Odoh, and three other members of the party in the state for alleged misconduct during the last ward congress.

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During the invasion, the rampaging thugs were said to have seized the cameras of TVC and NTA who were covering the event, while they also chased other reporters covering the meeting presided over by the State Caretaker Committee chairman, Ben Nwoye.

Flanked by other executive committee members of the State Working Caretaker Committee, Nwoye announced the three other suspended members as  Flavour Eze,  personal assistant to foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama, El Aja, and Ada Ogbu.

The suspended members, according to Nwoye were sanctioned following “their anti-democratic conducts during the last APC ward congress.”

He said the suspension was part of the recommendations of a committee set up by the state Caretaker Working Committee to investigate the role of the said suspended members.

According to the Committee which investigated the four members, headed by the Enugu East zonal caretaker committee chairman, Chief Anike Nwoga,  they were found to have been vested with the responsibility of collating fictitious names in their respective zones which they filed in as ward executives.

Also, the report, Nwoye said, discovered that Odoh, and the three other members ‘hired’ some mercenaries whom they used in writing fake results of the ward congress at the South-East zonal office of the APC.

Nwoye said: “The result forging scheme was executed by Eugene Odoh, Flavour Eze, Ada Ogbu and El- Aja, and we must say no to this undemocratic conduct.

“As a country and state, we must say no to these antics and undemocratic acts by some people who do not wish our great party well. We must let them know that power belongs to the people.”

Nwoye, who received a vote of confidence by the state exco, during the meeting, had announced the appointment of Chief Tony Ibekwe as the new Acting Zonal Caretaker Committee Chairman for Enugu West chapter of the party, following the death of its former chairman, Ikechukwu Omenkukwu.

Also, Ejiofor Okoloagu, was named the state Chairman of the party in Igbo Etiti local government Area of the state.

But, reacting to his acclaimed suspension by some members of the party who converged in a hotel in Enugu to say that they have suspended him Nwoye, dismissed the act, insisting that the said members involved had no such powers to convene SEC meeting in the first instance.

He described the purported removal as a ruse and laughable , adding that those involved in the announcement were impostors.

“I will not respond to them because they are impostors. I just concluded a meeting with the real SEC members at the party office,” Nwoye told Daily Trust.

In his to his reaction, the former speaker said, “Nwoye is our former Chairman. He was suspended by over 40 members of SEC this morning and as such couldn’t have had the power or the required number to suspend anyone.

Efforts by Daily Trust to speak with the three other suspended members were unsuccesful as their phone lines were not reachable at the time of filing this report.