ST. MOSES OGBONNA AND HIS TALES BY MOONLIGHT
By Onyebuchi Ememanka
A few days ago, Barrister St. Moses Ogbonna resigned his position as the State Organizing Secretary of the PDP.
I sincerely do not have any issues with his decision. As a lawyer, I know that the right to associate with any group or the refusal thereof is fundamental. He has exercised his right and he is entitled to it.
However, what I find extremely in bad taste was part of the reasons he gave for his action.
He cited several reasons including how the party is being run. I am not a member of the State Working Committee of the Party and as such, I am not competent to respond to that.
St. Moses claimed that he was excluded from everything done in the party. I shall quote verbatim from the third paragraph of his resignation letter which is all over social media. According to him…
“I, as Organizing Secretary has (sic) been excluded from everything that is being done in the party. Everything ranging from the last local government elections to the delegate elections up to the primaries of the current elections were done outside my office”.
St. Moses lied and did so brazenly and shamelessly, especially with regards to the last primaries.
I was an aspirant for the House of Representatives in the last primaries and by that token, I was deeply involved in the process, from start to finish. There was nothing that happened during that time that I didn’t see with my eyes.
It is shocking that St. Moses could make such allegation. As State Organizing Secretary of our party, he was the engine room of the party throughout the period of the primaries. His office was the busiest in the entire party secretariat. His office was busier than that of the State Chairman, Chief Johnson Onuigbo, State Secretary, Chief Nwadioha Ibe and State Administrative Secretary, Chief Robinson Ndukwu.
Indeed, St. Moses was busy throughout that time. There is no single person who took part in that primaries at any level that did not have a direct interface with him.
His office was in charge of selling and receiving forms for the three man delegates for all the 184 Wards in Abia State. They personally came to his office to pick the forms and to return them after filling them. Seeing St. Moses then was very difficult because he was busy. Very very busy.
There is this lady that works in his office. I took pity on the lady then. She hardly sat down as she worked round the clock throughout that period.
Every single information and directive from the party flowed from the office of St. Moses.
That time, he kept a gallon of mgborogwu on his table with kolanuts and all of us drank from it.
St. Moses also had a good time then as almost all the aspirants ensured that they left something for him, in appreciation of his hard work. Yes, he worked very hard then.
Apart from the office of Governor, every other aspirant from the Senate to the House of Assembly came to the office of the Organizing Secretary. He personally received completed forms from all of us. Indeed, he took his time to go through the forms to ensure that there were no mistakes. After satisfying himself of that, he would personally endorse the brown envelope containing the form and give it a number, before returning one copy of the form to you. He will then congratulate you for being part of the process, remind you that it’s a game that could go either way and then take pictures with you.
How could this man come out to say that he was excluded from the process?
During the screening of aspirants, St. Moses liaised directly with the members of the Screening Committee that came from Abuja. He was with them throughout from morning till night.
As a matter of fact, after the screening when we were expecting the results, St. Moses was there with us, driving to and from the State Secretariat and the Damgrete Hotel where the Screening Committee had a temporary Secretariat. It was St. Moses who sent text messages to all aspirants informing them of any development during that period.
On a particular day, I sat with him in his office from 4pm to 10pm waiting for the results of the screening. That day, several aspirants kept coming and going. Dr-acb Agbazuere came there, sat with us in St. Moses’ office and left after sometime.
At a point, we drove together to the Damgrete Hotel to check what was happening. When we got there, St. Moses told me to wait for him downstairs while he went upstairs to see the members of the Committee led by Her Excellency, Ambassador Fidelia Njeze. He came down one hour later around 11pm to inform me that they are still busy and will not finish until the next day and we left.
The next day when the exercise was completed, it was St. Moses that sent text messages to us to come for our certificates. He sat with the members at the Secretariat when the certificates were being issued to us. Indeed, he shook hands with each of us that passed the screening. He shook hands with me.
If you know anyone that contested the primaries, ask him about St. Moses and see his reaction. The man was at the epicenter of the process.
If he could lie about a chain of events that happened in public before hundreds of people, then I find it almost impossible to believe every other thing he said in that his letter.
The Latin Maxim is NULUS IN SINGULUS, NULUS IN PARIBUS. St. Moses is a lawyer, he will understand the meaning.
St. Moses, no one is questioning your right to go anywhere but please don’t lie about your reasons for such actions.
St. Moses is my friend but I am shocked at his behavior. If I see him and he says good morning to me, I will check my watch before I I respond.
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