Reacting to Obi’s Tuesday defection to PDP in an interview with newsmen in Awka, Ngige recalled that he had earlier stated that those leading APGA were traders and they were there to trade with the party.
Ngige, now a Senator representing Anambra Central, said with Obi’s defection, the entire “bogey” about the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) on which platform he was elected into the Senate being a Yoruba party and APGA being an Igbo party has been laid to rest.
He said when he heard from the grapevine few days ago that Obi was on his way to PDP, he was not surprised.
The APC chieftain said he was not in doubt that even if late APGA leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, were still alive, Obi would have still defected to PDP, which he was hobnobbing with as an APGA Governor.
“When I heard few weeks ago from the grapevine that Obi was on his way to PDP, I wasn’t surprised. Some of us know his style of politics, both the clandestine one and the one in the open.
“What I find baffling is that just about six months ago, the same person had publicly vowed that we should consider him as leaving politics, the day he leaves APGA.
“He said on that day that he was done with contesting for offices; that he is going back to face his business which has suffered because of his involvement in politics.
“I am confounded that he has not left partisan politics.”
He left APGA to join PDP. He has not left partisan politics to go back to his business.
“At one time he was tipped to replace Stella Oduah as Aviation Minister. Another time, he was tipped as National Coordinator of TAN (Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria).
“It is only him (Obi) that can explain his sudden abdication of the Board of Trustees (BoT) and leader of APGA which he vowed to uphold in memory of Ojukwu, our common mentor, who unfortunately disagreed with me on modalities for running APGA.
“I have always said that those in APGA leadership are traders and are there to trade with the party. All the bogey of ACN being Yoruba party and APGA being an Igbo party has been laid to rest.
“The bottom has been knocked off on story by sudden and instantaneous defection of Obi to PDP. I wish him luck,” Ngige said.
With Obi’s defection from APGA to PDP, he urged Ndigbo to open their eyes and know that those of them in APC – Rochas Okorocha, Ogbonnaya Onu, George Muoghalu, Okechukwu Ezea, Julius Ucha , Steve Ohajiruka, BB Apugo, Chris Ngige and others –were not sell outs and that their Igbo blood and Igbo spirit are still very strong.
He said that was why they have chosen to make their people the third leg of a tripod in APC, a national movement of all tribes in Nigeria.
“If the late Ikemba were alive, this movement would still have occurred. This is because an APGA chieftain once confided in me that they only use Ikemba to win election in Anambra and Imo and that after the election, they will go and do their trading.
“And this is what they have been doing in the past 11 years and I can see that whole thing being exposed in the last four or five years and now our Ikemba is no more,” Ngige said.
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