By GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE
Factional Acting National Chairman of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, Alhaji Sadeeq Ibrahim Masalla,speaks on the many controversial issues in the party including the sack of the founding National Chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie. Masalla says the other factional Chairman,Chief Victor Umeh, ran a one-man show.
Before your appointment as the Acting National Chairman of APGA, what was your position?
I was the Deputy National Chairman, North.
That means you were part of the Umeh leadership of the party.
So to say...but I was never given the chance as provided by the constitution of the party to perform my duties as the Deputy National Chairman of the party, in charge of North. I can say I was just there for ceremonial purposes. My office was redundant because the former National Chairman, Umeh, didn't allow any other officer of the party at the national level to work. The situation then was so bad in the party leadership so much so that whenever Umeh was not in Abuja, nothing happened until he returned.
So, does it mean the constitution of the party failed to stipulate clearly the duties of national officers?
APGA has a constitution, and the constitution provides the duties of every officer of the party. As the Deputy National Chairman, North, I was to act in the absence of the National Chairman, but Umeh never allowed us to follow the party's constitution. He would not call meetings, not even of the NWC and NEC, he was doing everything alone, taking decision without consulting anybody.
Are you saying Umeh operated or ran APGA outside its constitution?
(http://vml1.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Masala.jpg?9d7bd4) (http://www.vanguardngr.com/?attachment_id=294013)* Alhaji Sadeeq Ibrahim Masalla That is one of the 13 points we raised against him before he was suspended from the party.
Why was it impossible for you and other leaders of the party to question his style of leadership?
Umeh was a sole administrator of APGA. He always challenged anybody to dare to ask question about the way he was running the party. The other weapon he always used was suspension of members who challenged him. Immediately after we suspended the founding chairman of the party, Chief Chekwas Okorie, Umeh started having problem with leaders of the party like Dr. Ekwu, Prince Njamanze, Dr. Adams, Hajia Rakat among others.
The problem he had with these persons was that they questioned his one-man leadership system. He sacked them. The one-man show continued until recently when we called a meeting and said it was enough and we suspended him and the national secretary, Alhai Sani Shinkafi, from the party. We also set up a seven-man committee to look at the 13 issues we raised against them.
Has the committee submitted its report?
The committee is doing its job, it invited Umeh and Shinkafi to appear before it to answer questions, but they didn't go. As far as the party is concerned, Umeh and Shinkafi are suspended. Our party constitution says that one-third of the NWC can call a meeting and take decisions, that we have done and suspended them for violating the party constitution and other things.
So anything they are doing, including those they are bringing to Abuja to adopt and pass a vote of confidence on them, is illegal and we are not bothered about any illegality. And anybody who is currently doing anything with either or both of them in the name of APGA is doing so at his own risk, because they are no longer officers and members of the party. APGA as a party is bigger than Umeh.
He must also answer to all the charges against him. If he fails to do that, we will push the case to the relevant authorities to take action against him, and check our claims if we are right or wrong. He must explain why there are no offices of the party across the country, but Anambra and Imo states.
Are you saying that your party does not have offices all over the country?
Of course we don't have. The last time money was given to party officers at the various states to pay their rent was in 2005 when N250, 000 was given to state chairmen... since then, Umeh has not bothered if there are offices of the party that should be paid for anywhere.
He was not the one paying the rent in Anambra and Imo. Meanwhile, the report of the seven-man committee will be submitted to the NEC meeting that will hold soon; when the report comes, we shall ratify and then take further action against Umeh and Shinkafi..
Umeh has been suspended and you have been appointed Acting National Chairman, but Umeh has refused to go. Are you you aware of a meeting he had with some members of the National Assembly of the party?
What he is doing will not help his matter in any way.
After he was suspended, he said you and some other members had been suspended too...
He cannot build something on nothing. He has been suspended, so what ever he does is illegal. He is a drowning man,so he will try to raise his hands above his head to see if there will be any help. There is only one APGA, which I am the Acting chairman of; every other member of the party, including the elected members, are with us here.
Again, let me tell you that the political party monitoring unit of INEC is watching what we are doing; very soon, the commission will take a stand on APGA, because we intimate them with developments in the party.
Do you have the support of the elected members of your party, including the two governors?
Yes, they are with us. Last Friday, I led the national officers of the party to meet with our members in the National Assembly. Our senator and Hon. Uche Ekwunife were not around, but we met with other members of the party in the National Assembly, and we discussed the issues at stake and they refuted the claim by Umeh that members of the National Assembly of the party had passed a vote of confidence on him.
They told us that they didn't do any such thing, they said that they were at the party secretariat on a fact-finding mission and not to pass a vote of confidence on Umeh or anybody. Last Sunday, we had a meeting in Awka, the two governors were at the meeting and the wife of our late leader, Her Excellency, Chief Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, was also there; some of the National Assembly members were also there.
Were Umeh and Shinkafi at the meeting?
They were not there, and because they failed to come, the meeting couldn't hold as it should, because we wanted them to be there so they could answer our questions.
How true is the insinuation that the two APGA governors are also quarreling, and have also taken sides on the crisis, with Peter Obi supporting you, while Rochas Okorocha is supporting Umeh?
The governors are not quarreling. If they are, Obi would not have invited Okorocha to Awka for a party meeting, and other leaders of the party including Chief Tim Melakaya.. I can tell you that the governors are not quarreling, the claim is just a strategy by the Umeh group to give the public the impression they have the support of a governor.
How are you going about the reconciliation of aggrieved members of the party?
We are seriously working to ensure that our party is repositioned and restructured. We have already set up a reconciliation committee, to reach out to our members that were expelled and those that left the party on their own, due to the Umeh style of leadership; we want to bring everybody back so that we can build a strong APGA.
Is your founding chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie, part of the reconciliation?
He is. When I looked at the pros and cons of our action against him, last year, I personally went to Okorie to tender my sincere apologies. When I did this, I didn't know that, today, I will be the Acting Chairman of the party. I told him that what we did was wrong and that I had come to realize my mistakes for the role I played against him in the party.
If a National Chairman of a party is removed, there is order of succession. There are Deputy Chairmen one of whom should have succeeded the Chairman, and not the National Treasurer. At the time Umeh took over, it was wrong for him to have taken over since he was the Treasurer of the party, and there were those senior to him in the APGA leadership ladder. Umeh, at that time, was number eight in the hierarchy.
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