Details of how the former state Chairman of APGA in Abia, Augustine Ehiemere and the former state secretary, Onukwubiri Sunday and a few others entered into a deal with Abia state government to frustrate the suit filed by the party’s governorship candidate in the last election, Dr. Alex Otti at the Tribunal has leaked to the Press.
A WhatsApp conversation leaked by an aggrieved member of the group captured the inputs of the former party officials on how it would be in their interest to approach the PDP led government to finance them so that they could approach the Tribunal and illegally seek for the withdrawal of APGA from the governorship case pending in court.
Making reference to what Action Alliance (AA) did at the Tribunal in Imo state against Uche Nwosu, the former APGA officials affirmed that it would interest the PDP and their candidate to finance the plot since it could help free them from the heavy burden of proving how they won the governorship election which Otti is seriously challenging in court.
After the conservation, the rebels subsequently held a face to face meeting where they resolved to pursue the agenda vigorously, but agreed that they could only commence action after the state government must have released money to them, to avoid being betrayed midway.
Investigation revealed that after meeting with the agents of the government, the plot was stalled over the amount of money that would be involved and the lawyer that would handle the case for the APGA rebels.
According to the source, the PDP led government was not comfortable with the lawyer proposed by Ehiemere and Onukwubiri, fearing that the duo might connive with their lawyer to defraud and outsmart the government without executing the plot properly, and thus insisted in bringing a PDP/Government lawyer known for doing hatchet jobs for the government.
As at the time of filing this report, the said lawyer had written to Otti’s lawyers as well as filed some documents in court seeking the withdrawal of Otti’s suit.
It was also discovered that the lawyer and the duo of the former Secretary Onukwubiri and former Chairman Ehiemere had planned to ambush the authentic APGA state leadership led by Hon. Nkem Okoro in court earlier today with the intention of fraudulently withdrawing APGA from the suit, but when they learnt that they were going to be arrested for impersonation, coupled with the presence of dozens of APGA supporters in court, they took to their heels.
It would be recalled that the former party officials whose tenures expired over a month ago amidst fraud allegations handing on their necks insisted in being returned against the wishes of majority of APGA members and against the position of the court which had earlier warned them against impersonating the party, but when they found out that they had come to the end of the road, they decided to go into alliance with the government after earlier sending Ehiemere to initiate the process with the governor hiding under the guise of IPAC .
After presenting a watertight case in court through his lawyers, which has cast serious aspersions on the victory of the PDP and her candidate, Otti sent fears down the spines of his opponents forcing them to resort to all manner of manipulations aimed at frustrating the case.
Meanwhile, Otti/APGA team have closed their case at the Tribunal after presenting the last batch of their witnesses, and on the next adjourned date which is Thursday, 18th July, 2019, PDP shall be opening their case at the Tribunal.
Analysts are of the opinion that going by the case presented by Otti’s legal team with overwhelming evidence which centred on proving that the election was massively rigged through over voting and fraudulent allocations of votes in the 15 LGAs being challenged by Otti, the chances are very high that election that produced Ikpeazu might be nullified.
Attached here are some of the Whatsaap chats of the rebels in their Secrete Whatsaap group before they met and collected money from the government. We shall be bringing forth the audio versions later.
Chukwuemeka Oscar
