Leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu is expected to lead the national leadership of the party including the only APGA governor, Mr Peter Obi of Anambra State, National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, as well as other bigwigs of the party to welcome Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji into the party at a public declaration at Umuahia Township Stadium Friday June 2, 2010.
Abia state Governor Theodore Orji, Thursday explained that he left the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) because there was no longer any form of protection in PPA. He said: “The party was ready to bring me up and tell the whole world that I am a useless man. Orji canvassed and rose to power on the platform of the PPA.
Senator Uche Chukwumerije on Thursday also bid the party farewell. Chukwumerije announced his intention to jettison PPA at a press conference in Abuja. He said the move was necessitated by the fact that the former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu and his mother have turned the party into a private empire.
Chukwumerije described all members of the party as mere employees adding that all his efforts in the past to ensure a return to internal democracy in the party has failed.
Chukwumerije said: “It is now obvious that an incurable systemic flaw has brought PPA to a road end. The family proprietary structure, unable to meet the vigorous requirements of internal democracy demanded of a political party, suffers serious self-contradiction and faces prospects of a stunted growth”.
Special Adviser to Governor Orji on Print Media, Mr. Joshua Ogbonna while briefing newsmen on the evolving political developments in the state, blamed the leadership of the PPA for Orji’s decision to quit the party, pointing out that “if Larry Esin (PPA National Chairman) had not done what he did, the governor would not have left the party he co-founded”.
“There is no future for Abia state government in PPA under Larry Esin,” he said, adding that it was obvious that the leadership of PPA no longer wanted Orji in their fold.
Governor Orji also spoke in Umuahia when he received a team of the people of Umuahia North clan and Item youths from Bende local government areas of the state who paid him a solidarity visit at government house on Thursday.
He said “The PPA wanted to destroy me, but they were not ready to tell the world that they were the ones that made me useless. This made me to leave the party before it is too late. I moved out of the party to liberate myself from the clutches of bondage and this move has also helped to liberate the state from such clutches that has been hindering the state from progressing”.
The governor accused the PPA of playing double standards when they accused him of not building roads in the state, “only for them to turn around to allege that I was only concentrating development and building of roads in my area to the neglect of other areas in the state.”
Meanwhile, Orji’s resignation, from the PPA is already causing friction in the national leadership of the party with the National Chairman, Mr. Larry Esin, being blamed for the party’s loss of the only governor in its fold.