No refund, no reconciliation, aggrieved APGA aspirants tell Obiano
Aggrieved aspirants in the primaries of the All Progressives Grand Alliance on Thursday shunned a reconciliation meeting convened by the leadership of the party at the Anambra State Secretariat of the party in Awka.
They insisted that the money the expended for nomination forms and expression of interests must be refunded to them before they would consider any reconciliation.
The state chairman of the party, Chief Norbert Obi had convened the parley following an instruction from the national leadership of the party.
His invitation partly read “All APGA aspirants in the recently concluded primaries, party wards and local government executives are invited to meet with the committee as part of the party’s reconciliation efforts.
Our correspondent gathered that the Chairman of the Committee is the vice presidential candidate of the party in the 2019 general elections, Chief Jerry Chukwueke .
Other members of the Committee are, BOT member, Dr. Mrs Ifenyinwa Obegolu, Chief Uzoma Obinyo, Chief Elias Adokwe and Mr. Uche Nwegbo.
The party’s primaries were generally characterized by rancour, ranging from accusations of extortion, disqualification and outright issuance of the party tickets to favoured persons.
The bad blood generated by the exercise forced the party to set up a reconciliation committee.
A meeting scheduled for 3pm on Thursday at the party’s Secretariat was shunned by the aggrieved aspirants, and the reconciliation committee.
One of the aggrieved aspirants who spoke on condition of anonymity said “What reconciliation are they doing? Which reconciliation are you talking about? After extorting monies from us, they now say they want to reconciliation; how possible is that?
” We’ve decided that if they are serious about any reconciliation, let them start by refunding us our monies; then we will know they are serious.”
He added,”Governor Willie Obiano has killed APGA.We will demonstrate our anger against them in next year’s election. Just watch and see what will happen, this is the beginning of the end of APGA.”
The chairman of the party in the state, Norbert Obi refused to speak on the matter when our reporter saw him at the state Secretariat.
He simply said; “there is nothing to say. We didn’t see anybody here for the reconciliation. I’m going to my house. There is nobody to say.”
Anthony Okafor
