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From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Enugu State, has denied having a hand in the Monday protest by aggrieved members against the state Chairman of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Chief Ugochukwu Agballah, and the governorship candidate of the party, Chief Uche Nnaji, over their alleged involvement in a N1.3 billion fraud in the party.
PDP said it wouldn’t have bothered itself to what should have been an APC’s affair but for the dragging of the name of the party and its governorship candidate, Peter Mbah into the sponsorship of the protest by Agballah.
It called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) “to step in to investigate the weighty allegations boldly made by well-known APC party leaders against the duo of Chief Ugo Agballah and Chief Uche Nnaji.”
Addressing newsmen at a press conference held at Peter Mbah Campaign Headquarters, Independent Layout, Enugu yesterday, the Director of Communications and Spokesman, Enugu State PDP Campaign Council, Nana Ogbodo, noted that it was not a fight between the PDP and the APC but “squarely a fight between angry and deprived APC members and a greedy and conceited party leadership”. He wondered why Agballah whom he said has turned himself to “a clergy without congregation” would drag PDP into it.
He said the protesters who stormed APC national secretariat in Abuja on Monday alleged that the chairman of the party, Agballah, and the governorship candidate, Nnaji, were involved in the N1.3 billion fraud in the state, with their leader and chairman, Concerned Members of Enugu State APC, Adolphus Ude, telling newsmen that they were at the secretariat to vent their anger over the matter and asked the party’s national leadership to wade into it.
But berating APC for accusing PDP of sponsoring the protest, Ogbodo said, “We have, as usual been dragged into a purely APC affair by the loquacious Ugochukwu Agballah, who has claimed that the protesters were sponsored by the PDP. Of course, Agballah’s penchant for looking for scapegoats rather than face his demons is legendary.
“Ordinarily, the Enugu State PDP should have no business with the self-confessed fraud, embezzlement and impunity going on in the Enugu State chapter of the APC, except to say that they have further exposed to the world that they have no good intentions for Enugu State.
“Besides, the APC has never been a factor in elections in Enugu State, let alone now that all the key stakeholders of the APC in Enugu have abandoned the party to Ugochukwu Agballah and his godfathers.
“If the APC was in the ICU before his controversial emergence as the State Chairman, the party has now been effectively embalmed and consigned to the mortuary by the totalitarian, greedy, and corrupt leadership of Agballah and his two godfathers.”
The PDP spokesman urged Agballah to go home and settle with his aggrieved party members and restitute to them whatever he has taken from them and leave the PDP alone.
