A faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ebonyi state on Thursday said it has suspended indefinitely the factional Acting Chairman of the party in the state, Mr. Eze Nwachukwu Eze, for allegedly conniving with some party leaders to tamper with the party’s guidelines for Saturday’s state Congress.
Rising from a meeting of the factional State Executive Council, SEC, of the party in Abakaliki, the state capital, the Ben Nwaobasi led faction said the suspension of Nwachukwu became necessary in order to bring lasting peace to the party.
The faction warned the public to henceforth, be mindful of their dealings with him.
The party has been factionalised since 2014 when the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonna Ọnụ pulled out from the party to set up a factional office with some State Executive Committee members.
The SEC members led by Nwachukwu, who was then Nwaobasi’s Vice Chairman purportedly announced the impeachment on Mr Nwaobasi.
But the Nwaobasi group which is backed by Senator Julius Ucha, a Former Governorship candidate under the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party, ANPP, faulted the impeachment for not following due process.
The fictionalization continued till the last ward and local government congresses, where both factions held parallel Congresses.
Nwachukwu and some State Working Committee (SWC) members had on Monday adopted as a working document a report presented to it by a three man committee led by Mr Onu, which proposed a new zoning arrangement for the Saturday’s state Congress of the Party.
The other two members of the committee were former Governor, Martin Elechi (representing Ebonyi Central) and an ex-Senator, Chris Nwankwo (representing Ebonyi North), who is also Elechi’s in-law.
According to the new zoning formula, Chairmanship position of the party is zoned to Mr Nwachukwu’s Ebonyi North zone and even narrowed it down to his Ohaukwu local government.
But briefing journalists after the 54th SEC meeting of the party on Thursday, the state publicity secretary of APC in the state, Mr Ngaji Nwodo, who read the resolutions of SEC said the adoption of the purported new zoning formula presented by Onu’s led committee by the Acting Chairman was a clear violation of the party’s constitution.
They maintained that the new zoning formula adopted by Nwachukwu and his cohort was an anti-party activity and indiscipline,noting that it was unfortunate that Mr Onu, who is a serving Minister in the government of the APC is championing it.
“SEC condemns the nocturnal and anti-party action of Mr Eze Nwachukwu Eze, Chief Martin Elechi, Ogbonnaya Onu and Chris Nwankwo, to tamper with the 2014 APC Congress guidelines which is still in force for the 2018 congress,”they said.
They also noted that the new zoning formula was not only done with disregard to the constitutional rights of members of the state executive committee of the party in the state, but anti progressive in its entirety.
They added that the action of Nwachukwu and his cohort must be dealt with decisively and seriously.
SEC further directed Onu, Elechi and Chris Nwankwo to withdraw the purported new zoning arrangement within 24hrs or they would be constrained to invoke in full the party’s constitution to discipline them.
They further called on members of the party especially interested aspirants in the state’s congress to discountenance the purported new zoning formula by the Onu led committee.