Ekweremadu’s N5m Donation Claim to Enugu APC Cheap Blackmail, Says Nwoye

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Wednesday, September 5th, 2018

From Ignatius Okpara, Enugu

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The All Progressives Congress APC, Enugu state chapter, has dismissed recent claim by the embattled Deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, that he personally donated the sum of N5 million naira to the party in the state during its membership registration in 2014, describing the comment as a cheap political blackmail of the century.

Briefing newsmen Wednesday at the party Secretariat, the APC state Chairman, Dr. Ben Nwoye, challenged the senator , who represents Enugu West senatorial district in the upper chamber of the National Assembly NASS, to name the person he gave the money and where .

According to chairman, the party received “with total dismay, the report that he gave N5m to facilitate APC membership registration. That is false, and biggest political blackmail of the century.”

Dr. Nwoye stated thus: “I was elected chairman of APC in April 2014; I have never as a chairman met with Ike Ekweremadu one on one other than meeting him in public place, in church, where we exchange pleasantries, and by 2014, Senator Ike Ekweremadu was and is still a member of the People’s Democratic Party; so one wonders why a member of the PDP will be funding registration of members in APC.”

“The report attributed to him (Ekweremadu) indicated that he was doing so to help foster democracy; the unfortunate thing is that he never made mention of who he gave the money or where the money exchanged hands; instead he refers to an honourable minister, who at that time was a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Dr. Chris Ngige.

“As a Democrat and a patriotic citizen, we respect the Deputy Senate President, he is a statesman, and he knows that his comments will be taken seriously and those comments if made are capable of destroying the democracy we all worked for.” Nwoye stated.

“What still shocks me is that if Ike Ekweremadu has admitted funding the opposition, the PDP has refused to punish him, because that would be the height of anti-party; if he was in PDP and spending his money funding registration of members in an opposition party, which at the end of the day, by 2015, the opposition he helped to fund, took over power from his own party.

“Now, one may now have to understand why he connived with some members of the National Assembly and emerged as the Deputy Senate President.

“Assuming, but without admitting that Senator Ike Ekweremadu somehow, somewhere, funded the registration of members of the great opposition party in 2014, it is awkward that he helped the APC to defeat his own party; but our record shows that it is a blackmail, it is falsehood that is geared towards causing disharmony and to undermine our great party, by suggesting that our party had no money to conduct its own registration, it could not be farther from the truth.

“The registration done in 2014 and the one in 2017 was fully funded by progressives, those believed in the ability of the party to take over power; nobody solicited fund from Ekweremadu and he never made any overture to give fund.

“A high-ranking member of the PDP finds it worthy to admit that he was funding opposition in Enugu State, if you take the story to be true, you ask why?

“We know what happened in 2015, either him or his surrogates sponsored candidates; he may have paid somebody N5m to help him procure a ticket so that opposition will be oppressed so that he will remain unchallenged.”

While describing it as “final desperate attempt to continue to hang on to power whether the people like it or not,” Nwoye added that “it will not work, the progressives have come together; APC has come to stay in Enugu State.

“Today we have Mr. Surveyor P.C Eze, Chief Gbazuagu Nweke Gbazuagu, Barr. Mrs. Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagu; these are all formidable forces who are prepared to take over from him; any of these persons is more than capable to win him whenever the votes are cast in 2019. So, this a final attempt to blackmail APC and cast a shadow of doubt on the opposition, which has been very strong and formidable in the past 3 years.” he noted.