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While reacting to the tumultuous times that they have been facing in the party, some of the members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the Enugu State chapter have on Sunday, rejected all forms of the campaign fund from the presidential candidate of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
This fresh development had also formed part of their main resolutions which had also been reached during a stakeholders’ meeting at the South-East Secretariat of the party.
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The governorship candidate of the party, Chief Uche Nnaji, who made the proposition before it had been unanimously carried by members at the meeting, had also revealed that the campaign fund had been fingered as the major cause of the current crisis which had been rocking the Enugu State chapter of the APC.
Referring to the meeting of some of the party leaders in the State with the APC national leadership, he said the demand for the removal of Barr. Ugochukwu Agballah as the State Chairman was an exercise in futility.
Speaking on the development, Nnaji said, “We learnt of the mischief going on among our brothers, but the mischief will not go anywhere under our watch. About six months to election you want to remove the State exco of a party that is doing very well.
“When we took over, there was no party, it was existing for another party, which was paying them. We asked those ones to leave and we are happy they have left.
“Most of these gladiators don’t have presence in any ward. Some of them, their ward is owing rent for two years, they can’t pay N30,000.
“Yet, they want to remove a capacity chairman. You can’t touch an exco that is doing super well.
“Tinubu’s money is behind the APC crisis in Enugu State. They want to create confusion, after which they will say, there is faction, divide the campaign fund.
“They did it in 2015, did it 2019. The same human beings that did it then are the ones repeating it now.
“I will be meeting with our national chairman on Monday and then with Tinubu on Tuesday. I will tell Tinubu not to bring his money to Enugu.
“Enugu State doesn’t need Tinubu’s money, let them not send it. We will use our money and work. When we finish election, we will go for refund. If they bring it now, they may start killing us.”
“The issue of Tinubu money, I believe I have your support to tell them,” he asked, with the members chorusing ‘yes’.
Nnaji equally declared that they were not a party to any 25 percent voting arrangement.
“We reject in strongest term the 25 percent they want to ascribe to us. As it stands now, over 50 percent of the voters are with us.
“Anything less than 70 percent, then we have failed. I challenge everyone to come and check after the election, there will be nothing less than 70 percent,” he boasted.
Earlier in a remark, Agballah said he was on the move to reposition APC in the State and won’t be distracted.
He said, “today, I’m happy that APC is not just ready to take part in this election, but poised to win.
“We parade the best, our guber candidate is the best, we can trace the source of his resources. We shall investigate the source of the phantom wealth the other candidates are parading.
“Nobody contesting the governorship election in Enugu State is as clean as our candidate.
“We rejected some candidates that are questionable, we also disqualified some surrogates.”
Meanwhile, at the meeting, the party’s local government and ward chairmen said they remained behind the Agballah-led State Working Committee.
