Few hours after the Court of Appeal Enugu reinstated Chief Victor Umeh as national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Umeh and his team yesterday invoked the spirit of the late leader of the party Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi to lead them in the remaining battle ahead.
Umeh with his team and supporters including Chief Emeka Ojukwu (Jnr.) drove straight to Nnewi to Ojukwu’s mausoleum.
He assured the spirit of the late Ikemba that the party (APGA) he left in his care would not die and that the Appeal Court has returned him as the party national chairman.
He said: “The great leader of APGA, we are here to invoke your spirit and to reassure you that the party you left in our hands will not die. You have confidence in us and our great APGA has become a household name in Nigeria. We have our members in the Senate, House of Representatives and States Houses of Assemblies.
“But soon after you left, selfish individuals as locusts decided to destroy our great party. We strongly believe that with your spirit our enemies will be defeated. No one can claim to know you better than us. We know that you are a consuming fire, we call upon you to rise and destroy all our enemies as you have already started your work on them.
Speaking to newsmen later he said, “12 days ago he came to me in a dream, he was calling me the way he used to call me any time I came to see him and I knew that when he was calling me he was asking me to be strong. So today the Court of Appeal answered my prayer, I’ve informed him and believe you me everything I told him he heard them.
That was our relationship. I was very close to him and he knew what we represented. He knew that I knew the journey where he wanted us to be so I’ve told him that we are back and of course I’ve assured him we are working with his son Emeka Ojukwu who is now on the Board of Trustees replacing him. Also speaking, Chief Emeka Ojukwu (Jnr.) said he is strongly behind Umeh because his late father was behind him till he passed on and because his cause was a right one.
Meanwhile, Sylvester Nwobu Alor, an uncle to Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State and his Special Adviser on Parks and Markets, said the party is unperturbed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Enugu granting the embattled National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance(APGA), Victor Umeh a stay of execution. According to him, the court cannot stop an action that has already taken place and since the national convention was held before the court judgment, it cannot take effect.
His words: Umeh had gone to the Appeal Court to grant him a stay of execution which meant that the judgment given by the High Court should not be carried out until the determination of a substantive suit which we filed. Yesterday, he was given a judgment in his favour in terms of the execution of the high court judgment.
Unfortunately for him, I do not think that the judgment means much because we have already conducted the convention according to the High Court judgment and the members of the national executive had been elected before the Court of Appeal gave its own judgment.
If the court grants a restraining order for an action, that order can take place before and not after such an action. What he was asking the court to stop has already taken place and you cannot ask the court to stop what has already taken place.