If you check, anytime APGA members in Abia speak or write, they all make references to the successes of the party in Anambra State.
They labor to create a non existent link between the party in Anambra and Abia.
When Governor Willie Obiano was reelected in Anambra State, APGA members in Abia declared a party. They sang and danced. In their little minds, APGA’s victory in Anambra will be replicated in Abia in 2019. How ridiculous!
Unknown to these people, what makes a party is not just the name and logo but the people that make it up.
Comparing APGA Anambra and Abia is like comparing Wikkie Tourists Football Club with Real Madrid FC.
While APGA in Anambra is largely made up of principled politicians who have kept faith with the party from the start, in Abia, what you see is a motley crowd of political desperadoes who feed fat on opportunism.
Let’s even start from PETER OBI. In the build up to his emergence as Governor, many people didn’t know Peter Obi. He was a silent businessman minding his business and sitting quietly on the boards of several companies, making his money. He was never a member of any party and never hobnobbed with any politician, at least openly. It was when he declared his plans to vie for the position of Governor that we heard of him.
I still remember the first day I saw his poster along Azikiwe Road Aba. It was printed in shiny green colors and bore the inscription ARE WE CURSED OR ARE WE THE CAUSE?
Peter Obi entered the race in Anambra with no single political baggage and clean records. He had never been a government contractor before and had no known links with any previous government in Anambra State.
When he brought Obiano to replace him, he went for a core banking professional with no political links.
If you observe, the party has been united in Anambra ever since. They have never experienced any crisis that sought to tear them apart.
Oya, let’s come to Abia!
APGA ABIA is the very antithesis of what you have in Anambra State. The party is currently peopled by funny characters who lack any clear ideology and have a rich history of deep political involvements and failures.
Let’s start from their alter ego, Alex Oti.
Even while he worked in banks, Oti was deeply involved in politics. He was just a banker by name and a politician at heart. While he did bank work in the day, he played politics at night. Oti was nothing but a political banker, using his lofty positions in banks to make political inroads and create a network of political friends.
Even while he served as MD of Diamond Bank, Alex Oti was working tirelessly to replace TA Orji as Governor of Abia State. He hobnobbed relentlessly with the former Governor and handled several financial transactions for the last administration. He was a regular caller at Government House Umuahia. This is true and cannot be challenged by anyone.
Alex Oti was a core member of the PDP even from his days as Bank Chief. He was deeply involved, albeit, surreptitiously, in the affairs of the party. We all know this.
As soon as he felt the coast was clear and considering the inroads he hade made politically and with the impending departure of the TA Orji as administration, Oti resigned from Diamond Bank. By his own calculations, it was just a matter of a few months before he would be sworn in as Governor. He had it all planned out and invested heavily to secure the PDP ticket.
By then, in the books of Oti, TA Orji was the next best thing after a Bank ATM. He was a blessing and a motivational leader. Oti eulogized TA endlessly then.
But he was not favored by the zoning policy of the Abia PDP and the Abia Charter of Equity. Either through his real home in Arochukwu or his political home in Isiala Ngwa South, Oti didn’t come within the Abia South Senatorial District where the PDP had zoned their ticket to since the other two zones had produced Governors.
This was the ONLY reason why Alex Oti left the PDP and nothing more. I challenge anyone to controvert this statement.
He then ran to APGA and used his huge financial muscle and wide network of friends to bulldoze his way into the party. He practically bought over the entire National Working Committee of the party led then by Victor Umeh. He came to Abia and dislodged the existing party machinery here. Using his Naira laced boots, he kicked out the State Executive Council of the party led by Barrister Ukaegbu and installed his own led by one Rev. Ehiemere who is only a reverend by name with no known preaching outing anywhere or any church affiliation. Oti didn’t stop there. Having taken over the party machinery, he muscled his way to the party ticket and dislodged people like Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba and Chief Chikwe Udensi who were the two known aspirants of the party before Oti came along. There were no primary elections where all the aspirants contested.
Within less than two months, Oti joined APGA, took over the party and emerged their candidate for Governor.
Money is a powerful tool in politics. Trust me.
So how can anyone compare Oti with Peter Obi and Obiano?
Dr. Max Nduaguibe is currently the Director General of the Alex Oti Campaign Organization. He replaced Ahamdi Nweke who held that position in 2015 but is now at daggers drawn with Oti.
Dee Max is a respected academic and an associate professor of law. He is also a distinguished son of Ngwaland. We all respect him. But in politics, Dee Max has been an abysmal failure. Like his new boss, Oti, Dee Max is also a very unstable politician jumping from party to party. He had tried severally to be Governor himself and failed in each case. In 1999, he was the candidate of the AD. He came third in the election behind Orji Uzor Kalu and Vincent Ogbulafor. Indeed, his performance in that election was an embarrassment. In 2011, he ran to the PPA to vie for the position of Governor again. That too one ended in a fiasco.
Today, he is the head of the Alex Oti Campaign. He now plans to make another man Governor when he couldn’t make himself one. We will see that magic Dee Max will produce this time. We will see how he plans to push Oti to victory in his home local government of Isiala Ngwa North where top gladiators like Ginger Onwusibe, Prince C O Enweremadu, Chief Tony Onwutuebe, Dr. Chuku Wachuku, Chief Okey Ahiwe and the others are rooting for Ikpeazu. I wonder how plans to convince his kinsmen in Mbawsi to leave a Governor who is constructing a road at Mbawsi to support Oti. Dee Max thinks that the people of Isiala Ngwa North will forget that Ikpeazu made their son, Professor Uche Ikonne, the first Ngwa Vice Chancellor of the Abia State University. I will be shocked if Dee Max can win any ward in Isiala Ngwa North for Oti in 2019.
Dee Max’s latest recruit, Dom Nik lives in Port Harcourt and is politically non existent in his home at Isiala Ngwa. He plays his own politics by speaking long grammar on facebook. Hehehehehehehe.
I asked one woman politician from Isiala Ngwa North if he knows one doctor called Dom Nik who is from their place. She stared at me with confusion and said URURUAJA, ISI LA OBU DOM NGIRI?
Heheheheheh Hehehehehehehehe
Ariwa Zuby is also one of their latest recruits. He will add some small political value. At least, he is known by his kinsmen at Ohuhu Umuahia his home. He goes home often and takes part in community development matters. Unlike Dom Nik, he also answers his real name on facebook. But Zuby is also a confirmed political “jumpologist”. Few weeks ago, his profile picture was that of Uche Ogar. Today, he has dumped Ogar and embraced Oti, something that Chima Obiwuru is not finding funny at all.
Hehehehehehe Hehehehehehehe.
Comparing APGA in Anambra with the charade and organized confusion we have in APGA Abia is a great affront to the efforts of the party in Anambra state.
Unable to manage the little success they achieved in 2015, APGA ABIA is practically in shambles today with two or is it three parallel State Executive Councils, each having its own secretariat in Umuahia.
Alex Oti hasn’t been able to sustain the accidental successes he recorded in 2015, a success which came not by his own efforts but by what I prefer to refer to as revolt by the people. Oti was merely an accidental beneficiary of that revolt. He has since lost eight of the House of Assembly members elected on his party’s platform. He has fallen out with his Campaign DG and State Electoral Agent.
At the National Level, he has fallen out with the current National Working Committee. Indeed, since Victor Umeh left as APGA National Chairman, Oti hasn’t been able to strike a deal with the current Victor Oye led Exco in Abuja. Oye hi,self is a former PDP member.
Oti has also fallen out with the APGA South East Zonal leadership of the party. He accused the National Vice Chairman of the party, Chief Uchenna Okogbuo of embezzling tens of millions of Naira and petitioned the EFCC. The matter is still on as we speak.
Someone should tell Alex Oti’s men to wake up and smell the coffee. They should stop comparing sleep with death.
And before anyone of the, responds to this post, the person should first tell us the faction he belongs to and the address of their State Secretariat.
© Onyebuchi Ememanka
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