Uduegbunam ChukwujamaIt would appear that the crisis silently threatening the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is getting messier, as two major leaders of the party in Anambra State, Senators Chris Ngige and Andy Uba, have staged a public show of divisive politics in Abuja. Both leaders, who live and work in Abuja, are close to the Presidency and are supposed confidants of President Muhammadu Buhari, but will be holding separate meetings of Anambra APC caucus members in Abuja, the seat of power, on Friday December 10, 2021, at 10 am.
Ngige, Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Employment, was governor of Anambra State on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for a brief period in 2003 before he was removed by the court of law and replaced by Mr Peter Obi, then of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Ngige’s removal by the court followed his fight with his political godfather and Andy Uba’s younger brother, Chris Uba, who attempted to forcefully remove and replace him with his deputy, Okey Ude, until he was reportedly saved by forces from the PDP’s Olusegun Obasanjo national government, reportedly on the directive of the then Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Andy Uba, Chris Uba’s brother, at the time of Governor Ngige’s ‘ordeal’ was in Obasanjo’s “kitchen cabinet” and was very influential in the scheme of things, the reason many believed that younger Uba’s ‘unofficial powers’ in Anambra at the time were derived from the Presidency.
Now in the same ruling political party, both leaders (Ngige and Andy Uba) have been at daggers-drawn going for each other’s throat in replay of 18-year-old war of attrition, part of the reason many believed Andy Uba failed badly in the just-concluded November 6 Anambra Governership election won landslide by APGA’s Professor Chukwuma Soludo.
Ngige is the current leader of the APC in Anambra State.
While Ngige hosts a caucus meeting of the party in his Abuja residence today, Chairman of the party in Anambra State, Mr Basil Ejidike, sponsored by Andy Uba, will on the same day hold the same meeting at Maitama in Abuja.
Concerns are rife that both factions will fail to achieve their desired goals as members will be torn between the two meetings.
As at 7 am on Friday, promoters of both meetings were still sending out reminders to ensure that caucus members honoured their own arrangement.
Crisis has subsisted in the Anambra APC leadership since the party lost the election, with some members having been either suspended indefinitely or outrightly sacked.
Ejidike, for instance, was sacked as chairman of the party in the state but he insists it is of no avail. Ejidike , it is learnt, is also working to sack the secretary of the party, Mr Chukwuma Agupugo, who was accused of anti-party activities. Agupugo is loyal to Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment.
Ngige was accused to have been opposed to emergence of Andy Uba as APC’s gubernatorial candidate in the last election, in which Uba eventually came third.
A member of the party and the media and publicity director of the Andy Uba campaign organisation, Hon Afam Ogene, accused Ngige of attempting to return as the leader of the party, after having worked against its candidate in the last election.
“You cannot abandon your troops in wartime and seek a return to lead this same beleaguered people in peacetime,” Hon. Victor Afam Ogene a former member of the House of Representatives said.
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