Ebonyi Apc Member Petitions National Party Chairman, Chronicles Maltreatment Of Founding Members By Gov. Umahi
The Chairman,
National Caretaker Committee,
All Progressive Congress (APC)
National Headquarters, Abuja.
7th July, 2021.
Your Excellency,
Report Of Continued Heartless And Ignoble Treatment Of Ebonyi Apc Martyrs And Ebonyi Apc Surviving But Exiled Heroes/heroines Of The 2019 Presidential And Other Elections; And Extreme Sideline Of The Old Apc Members In Ebonyi State By Governor David Umahi
1. I am the Member representing the South East in All Progressives Congress, APC, National Committee for the Mobilization of Women, Youth and People with Disability for Party Revalidation and Registration.
2. Recall that on 18th November, 2020 when Your Excellency led a delegation of APC national officers to Ebonyi State for the formal defection of Governor David Umahi into APC, I led a protest of Concerned Old APC members which included foundation members of APC in Ebonyi State, former APC gubernatorial aspirants including Arch. Edward Nkwegu; the present Chairman of Federal Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Allocation Commission, RMFAC, Chief Elias Mbam; former Member of House of Representatives and Ebonyi APC stalwart, Dr. Peter Oge Ali and a host of others. Our protest was against the roughshod, brutal and domineering manner of Governor David Umahi's impending lone defection into APC wherein members of the old APC in Ebonyi State who were killed in different parts of Ebonyi State by Governor David Umahi and his agents for voting for the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general elections were neither mourned nor their survivors given financial assistance to cope with life; and others framed up and thrown into prison, facing trial or forced into exile for the same "offence" of voting for All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari in the same 2019 general elections were neither released from prison/trial nor reinstated and compensated by the same Governor David Umahi who then was joining the APC.
3. Your Excellency may recall that in the protest, the concerned old APC members expressed concern that it was unwholesome there was no recourse to us by our chief assailant and antagonist, Governor David Umahi, who intended to join us via that defection ceremony; and expressed fears that given Governor David Umahi's verified antecedents, he was on a mission to supplant and rubbish the old APC members who stood with the party and suffered through thick and thin.
4. Your Excellency, after listening to our complaints which were so genuine that Governor David Umahi who was present and heard our complaints against him could neither deny nor refute any, Governor David Umahi openly apologized to us in Your Excellency and other APC national officers' presence and promised to: (1) mourn the said APC martyrs who were killed by his agents for voting for All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general elections and pay compensation to their survivors to enable them absorb the shock of the untimely deaths of their respective breadwinners; (2) release those he clamped into prison and those facing trial for the "crime" of voting for All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019; (3) reinstate those forced into exile and restitute their respective inheritances which they were divested of them for the same "crime" of voting for APC and President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general election; and (4) to accommodate the old APC members in both the structure and running of the APC and his administration in Ebonyi State. It was after that and the assurance that Your Excellency and the national leadership of the party will ensure that Governor David Umahi implements those agreements that you urged us to join the defection ceremony. As core loyalists, we obeyed.
5. Your Excellency, the essence of this correspondence is to regretfully inform you, the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress and His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, that Governor David Umahi has serially breached all those honest agreements; and that as Your Excellencies read this letter, supporters of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, in the 2019 general elections have been unmourned while many others are languishing in prison in Abakaliki and Afikpo with many yet in exile with their inheritances divested of them by the agents of the selfsame Governor David Umahi who has continued to habitually mouth his love for President Muhammadu Buhari on television screens in the hope of attracting support for his (Umahi's) 2023 vice-presidential project. Governor Umahi has equally used his influence to frustrate the intervention of the Human Rights Defenders in the pathetic case of the embattled supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari whom Umahi has clamped into prison, forced into exile, divested of their homes and other inheritances or subjected to trial for trumped up criminal charges. This is despicable!
6. Governor David Umahi who joined the party as a loner without any stakeholder from, national or state assembly member (Note that no legislator whether federal or state from Ebonyi State has defected to APC on the floor of the legislative chambers) from his former political party took over the leadership of the party through installation of his Commissioner for Internal Security, Hon. Stanley Emeagha as Acting State Chairman; the Council Chairman of Onicha LGA, Engr. Igboke, as the State Organizing Secretary; and another of his appointee as the State Publicity Secretary and so on. Through those aides of his, Governor David Umahi has not only succeeded in supplanting the old APC members, but he has positioned himself menacingly to hijack the on-coming APC congresses and install his shortlisted cronies and thereby seal the fate of the old APC members in Ebonyi State. Governor David Umahi's antagonism against the old APC family is depleting the gains of the APC National Committee for Mobilization of Women, Youths and People Living with Disabilities to which I belong in Ebonyi State which is my state of origin. For instance, this is why people like the former Ebonyi State Commissioner for Information and Senatorial aspirant for Ebonyi South, Dr. Abia Onyike, who read our protest letter against Umahi's roughshod lone defection into APC to the National Chairman and members of the APC NEC delegation who came to welcome the Ebonyi governor into APC on 18th November, 2020 have left APC, but we are still hanging on in the trust that something can be done to tame Governor David Umahi even now.
7. Consequently, we urge Your Excellency and the entire national leadership of our great party to:
(a) Encourage Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State to demonstrate sincerity and commitment to All Progressives Congress; his much mouthed loyalty and love for President Muhammadu Buhari in practical terms; and his much avowed Christianity for which he bears the bogus titles of "Apostle/Deacon" by mourning All Progressives Congress members killed by Umahi's agents, releasing without delay the people he has continued to detain in prisons in Ebonyi State, those on trial before various courts in Ebonyi State, reinstating those in forced exile and restituting their respective inheritances especially those from Obegueji in Agbaja Community of Izzi Local Government Area whose only crime was that they voted and sought to protect their votes for the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general elections.
(b) Governor David Umahi should also be persuaded to reasonably assist the widows, orphans and survivors of APC members killed in the aftermath of their support for President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC in the 2019 general elections as well as those he imprisoned or forced into exile for the same reason. These (a and b as stated above) were the conditions which Governor David Umahi volunteered before Your Excellency and other APC National leaders as he apologized after our protest on the day of his purported lone defection into APC in Ebonyi State at the Presidential Lodge of the old Government House, Abakaliki.
(c) Protect the interests of the founders and old APC members in Ebonyi State which Governor David Umahi has been too desperate to painstakingly undermine in the forthcoming APC congresses by ensuring that the processes of the APC congresses are not schewed to the detriment of old APC members as Governor David Umahi has boasted and is wont to.
(d) Educate Governor David Umahi to stop unnecessarily harassing those who were in the APC in Ebonyi State before his lone defection into the party as though they are common criminals.
Your Excellency, find attached Concerned old members of APC's protest letter against Governor David Umahi's roughshod defection dated 18th November, 2020 marked as "ANNEXURE 1"; a Save-Our-Souls letter of the endangered APC faithful in Izzi LGA who had been at the receiving end of Governor Umahi's executive lawlessness for the "crime" of voting for President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC in the 2019 general to the National Human Rights Commission dated 10th August, 2020 marked as "ANNEXURE 2"; picture of Mr. Livinus Ovuoba who was beaten to coma and taking into detention because people irate villagers prevented Governor David Umahi's gestapo from killing him on spot as well as pictures of some of the some of the many homes of APC members which were burnt/destroyed by Governor David Umahi's gestapo which are marked as ANNEXURE 3(a - d) as well as a video clip of some of their depends in their place of exile from where they wailed to human rights investigators who visited them which is marked as "ANNEXURE 4".
8. Accept the assurances of the unflinching loyalty and commitment of members of the old APC family in Ebonyi State in anticipation prompt actions on this correspondence.
Yours faithfully,
Hon Chief Chijioke Igwe Uwa
Member representing South East in APC National Committee for the Mobilization of Women, Youth and People with Disability for Party Revalidation and Registration.
