By Harriet Ijeomah
On Thursday April 25, 2019 aggrieved members of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Imo State chapter stormed their party secretariat along Egbu Road Owerri and sacked their chairman, Barr. Peter Ezeobi over what they described as their dismay on the chairman’s mismanagement and willful destruction of the state party structure.
Addressing the press at the state party secretariat along Egbu Road Owerri where virtually all the state executive committee members including LGA chairmen and their secretaries where in attendance, Pastor Alphonsus Eberendu explained that they took the decision to “throw away the lame-duck called Peter Ezeobi, in a bid to save the party from further destructions”.
He gave out other reasons such as autocratic leadership style and attachment of his own personal phone number to the party’s bank account, to enable only him make withdrawal and receive deposit alerts.
He explained further that the dubious plan of Peter Ezeobi has made the state party chairman and one Mrs Genevieve Ogbonna, the State Treasurer to pillage the party treasury and mismanage funds, with reckless abandon as if there is no other man in the party.
According to the statement, “Barr. Peter Ezeobi’s poor leadership, management and administrative skills have made it impossible for the party to have a proper record of income and expenditure” as he stressed that Ezeobi aligned with Mrs Genevieve Ogbonna the state treasurer to perpetrate the monumental fraud and embezzle all party’s fund which include the Four Thousand two Hundred Naira (N4,200) party membership revalidation fee paid by about 15,000 members of the party which he noted amounted to more than Fifty Million naira (N50,000,000.00), the misappropriated illegal taxes from delegates form processing of One Thousand naira (N1,000) fee charged 15,000 members of the party which amounted to fifteen million naira and other party funds in excess of Ten Million naira (N10million) only.
At the end of the briefing, the entire members of the executive committee present could not help but endorsed the motion to sack Ezeobi with ignominy. They were bitter that with all the huge funds at the disposal of Ezeobi, the party lost the elections of 2019 very massively and accused him of being unable to win his Oguta polling booth.
The party confirmed that Barr. Ezeobi, the now suspended party chairman, have run the state account for 4 years without proper account records, as an agent of poor financial prudence and accountability. On his part he has made it impossible for the party to account for the monies that came in between June 2015 and March 2019.
“His lack of leadership quality made it impossible for him to hold a single State Working Committee (SWC) meeting in the 4 years existence of the SWC and he never came to the state executive meeting with a proper meeting programme and well typed agenda”, they stated.
At the end of the meeting the party agreed on the suspension of Barr. Peter Ezeobi as the state party chairman and that duo Barr. Sylvia Iwejuo and Mrs Genevieve Ogbonna as accomplice in the mismanagement of the party resources.
In conclusion, Pastor Alphonsus Eberendu was subsequently endorsed as Acting State Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
