APGA crisis: Njoku can’t inherit structures I built – Victor Oye

•We’re coming to takeover Secretariat – Njoku replies

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

The leadership crisis bedeviling the opposition All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) has continued unabated, as Victor Oye, who is central in the conflict, at the weekend said his rival, Edozie Njoku is a product of illegality and as such cannot inherit the structures he (Oye) built.

Responding to Oye, Njoku, who had maintained that the game is up against his opponent, revealed that his next agenda is to takeover the party’s national Secretariat in Abuja, adding that this will mark the beginning of the recovery of APGA from those he described as illegal occupants.

Note that the crisis ravaging APGA has continued without a respite as both Victor Oye and Edozie Njoku insisted on taking control of the party following a controversial Court judgement which earlier gave victory to Oye, but later reversed itself in favour of Njoku.

Speaking to journàlists at the weekend in Abuja, Oye said chief Edozie Njoku is not known to the law and Constitution as long as the party leadership crisis is concerned, adding that the alleged letter written by retired Justice Mary Odili of the Supreme Court, to correct a mistake in its earlier judgement is a suspect and could not have originated from the retired Justice.

Recall that Njoku had displayed a letter to journàlists during a press conference in Abuja, in which it claimed that Justice Odili, who led the panel that adjudicated on the APGA leadership suit, had written a letter to correct the mix-up in her judgement, which gave victory to Oye, rather than Njoku.

The alleged letter by Odili reads “I indeed recall your letter dated 6 May, 2022 to me as the Presiding Justice of the Panel and the other four Justices which requested for correction of the 14 October, 2021, Supreme Court Judgment, wherein the name of Chief Victor Oye was erroneously inserted instead of the name of Chief Edozie Njoku.

“It is to be placed on record that I corrected the mistake by replacing Chief Victor Oye’s name with that of Chief Edozie Njoku on Paragraph 1 of page 13 of the 14 October, 2021 Judgment.

“The Correction was made having cognizance that on the day of delivery of the judgment being 14 October, 2021 by a slip of the pen and tongue, the name of Chief Victor Oye was brought in. This error was pointed out to me by other members of the Panel who reminded me that Chief Victor Oye was not a party to the Appeal or the proceedings which emanated from the Jigawa High court.

“However in the course of the trajectory of errors, the name of Chief Victor Oye kept recurring in the record of the Judgment instead of the right party to the proceeding, Chief Edozie Njoku.

“By this clarification it is to be noted that Chief Victor Oye was not a party to the proceedings and the proper party for whom the judgment and orders referred is Chief Edozie Njoku.”

However, speaking to journàlists at the weekend, Oye said it was not proper for a litigant whose name was not in the Court list to write to a Justice of the Supreme Court, seeking amendment to an apex Court judgement.

“It is preposterous as long as we are concerned. And the Justice of the Supreme Court replied to a litigant whose name was not in the suit. We do not even believe that Justice Mary Odili wrote that letter. We are still in doubt and we are still in shock. We could not believe that it happened and we believe it did not happen”, Oye said.

But Njoku, in his response to Oye, presented Court documents to journàlists to indicate that he was the litigant whose name was the anchor of the Jigawa High Court suit, before it proceeded to apex Court where the last judgement was delivered by Justice Odili, contrary to Oye’s argument that Njoku was never a party in the suit abinitio.

At this point, he said the crisis in APGA has gone beyond who is the chairman or not, but now at the stage where they are moving to recover the party.

“What we are doing is to recover the party, that is the process we have started. Do you think we don’t have anything doing, if you are the one fighting it, how else do you do it?

“You are talking about your office you built, so is it your father’s house. I’m not fighting for Soludo, I’m not fighting for candidates, I’m fighting for my seat as the national chairman of APGA, which I emerged at the national convention. First thing should be done first.

“Though I would not want to tell you the moves we are making, however, from the day we went to the Court last Thursday, our aim is to move into the national Secretariat. There is no bottleneck to recovering APGA headquarters now. So let us take it as it comes”, Njoku said.