Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The former General Manager of the Abia State Environmental Sanitation Agency (ASEPA) and son of All Progressives Congress (APC) Board of Trustees (BoT) and National caucus member, Prince Benjamin Apugo, Hon Victor Apugo, has warned People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains from Ibeku to desist from insulting his father in the name of politics.
The APC BoT member had while in a local radio programme in Umuahia last week accused Sen TA Orji of looting Abia funds while in office as governor, which he said was the cause of the stunted infrastructural development of the State.
Some leaders of the PDP from Ibeku where both men hail from, in a statement, castigated the senior Apugo over his attack on Sen Orji.
The former ASEPA boss, while addressing journalists in Umuahia, warned that he wouldn’t ‘tolerate anybody insulting my father because of politics.’
Accusing those he described as ‘third party and sycophants’ of stoking the political feud between his father, and Senator Orji, the former ASEPA boss who is a staunch member of PDP said instead of the people exploring ways to make peace between the duo, they were helping to magnify and escalate the feud for selfish interests.
He also refuted claims by Orji’s aides that Apugo disowned his children insisting that at no time did their father disowned them, saying for the fact ‘that some of us don’t belong to the same political party with him does not mean we are quarrelling.
‘Politics is all about ideologies and if we don’t share the same ideologies we owe nobody any apologies or explanations. These people are political jobbers who are fishing in troubled waters to enrich their pockets.’
He equally refuted claims that his father sold some plots of land belonging to the Nigeria Railway Corporation as alleged by the group, saying that the Railway Property Management Company Ltd. had in a letter with reference number, RPC/EZ/UM/VOL.1-26, and dated December 20, 2016, clarified that the six plots of land in contention were not part of Railway land.
He further dismissed as unfounded, allegations that his father was among failed contractors, challenging the accusers to provide evidence.