The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has named Senator Victor Ndoma- Egba as secretary of its National Convention Planning Committee.
He replaces Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu who resigned last Friday.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, disclosed this yesterday.
He also confirmed the resignation of Uwajumogu.
The APC spokesman dismissed reports the former secretary was forced to resign as a way of acquiescing to the demands of his state governor, Rochas Okorocha who threatened to dump the ruling party should his request for a new Scribe be turned down.
โIt is not a tradeoff. To the best of my knowledge, the reasons he gave were personal and the National Working Committee NWC has appointed somebody else, Sen. Victor Ndoma-Egba.
โI do not know how that can be a tradeoff because if it is so, I think his replacement should have been another person from Imo but the new appointee is from Cross River.โ
Uwajumogu explained his resignation was to enable him attend the convocation of two of his children in the United Kingdom(UK), which coincides with the partyโs convention on June 23.
The Senator, who is one of the APC chieftains in Imo state engaged in a running battle with Governor Rochas Okorocha, over the recently- conducted congresses, said the governor has been doing everything possible to implicate him.
He said he is aware of some other social media reports that he was forced to resign over financial misappropriation, saying his resignation will clear the air on some of the accusations against him.
According to him: โThe reason I resigned primarily is that when I was appointed, the date for the national convention, as we were informed, was to be on May 14.
โEventually that date was moved to June 2 and there were hopes that the convention would hold between June 2 and 9.
โHowever, the date has now been moved to June 23 and it will conflict with my family activities and responsibilities.
โFor example, two of my children are graduating from the university in England within this month and I have a responsibility to be there and I have some other jobs at hands too.
โSo, I decided that since I wonโt have the time for this convention, I should resign so that the position can be given to somebody who has the time.โ
On his relationship with Okorocha, he said: โIt is not a personal thing. It is something that all of us in Imo state are opposed to the way government in Imo state is being run.
โOur opposition to that is something that is based on principle; based on the fact that 95 percent of Imo citizens and indeed south easterners are not happy with what is happening in Imo state.
โSouth east citizens are ashamed, that the only state we, APC, have in the region is being run the way it is in the past three years and for me, I did not have a choice than to detach myself from that government.
โAs a matter of fact, I am happy that I have resigned. I am aware that the governor is supporting some south east citizens to run for offices zoned to the region and so now that I have resigned, nobody will accuse me of manipulating the process.โ
He dismissed claims his exit may threaten the convention, saying the committee had concluded virtually all arrangements to hold the exercise despite having received only N13 million so far for its activities.
The Senator went on: โNow that I have resigned, I can only hope that my governor, Rochas Okorocha will spend more time in Imo state attending to the various issues that he has created for himself because in the last two weeks, he has been here in Abuja running around for the Convention and trying to put only people that are favourable to his policies.
โOkorocha has always threatened to leave the party if the Congresses were not reversed. I hear he has threatened to leave if my position was not takenโฆ.
โThis started more than two weeks ago and it is just a coincidence because I had made up my mind to leave. I am just hoping that now that I have left, he will return to Owerri.
โHe has 27 hospitals he said he has built which have been overtaken by weeds. Imo state is a massive basket of fraud and I am very sure that the EFCC have their records.
โIt is very clear today, that this is no longer an Imo issue but a south east issue.
โIt is very clear now that the entire south east has lost confidence in the leadership of Rochas Okorocha and all we are saying is that Nigerians should take note that we no longer have him as our leader.โ
