Politics
Pro Democracy Group Alleges Plot To Pitch President Tinubu, APC against Former Minister
By Our Reporter
Youths for Progressive Governance (YFPG), a socio-political group in the fold of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nigeria, has frowned at the latest orchestrated plan to blackmail former Minister of State, Mines and Steel Development, Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah by political opportunists.
The pro-democracy group noted that the evil machination of these opportunists is to incite President Bola Tinubu and the leadership of the APC against Dr Ogah with accusations of sabotaging the party during 2023 general elections held in Abia state as recently displayed by one Nnamdi Oleh.
Recall that Mr Oleh had accused the ex-minister of openly working against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and Nkeiruka Onyejiocha and rigged the 2023 elections in his Uturu village in Isiuakwato local government area of Abia state against APC.
He also accused Dr Ogah of sponsoring media bloggers to launch attacks on Senator Kalu who currently represents Abia North senatorial district in the national assembly.
However, Youths For Progressive Governance while reacting in a statement on Tuesday signed by the national coordinator, Comrade Samuel Aguiyi and the Publicity Secretary, Chiamaka Nzomuche, exonerated Dr Uche Sampson Ogah from the abysmal performance of the APC in the concluded 2023 elections held across Abia state by the INEC.
The organisation reminded Mr Oleh and his sponsors to heap blames on the party’s failure in the last presidential, governorship, national and state assemblies in Abia to the unpopularity of the State Gubernatorial candidate, Chief Ikechi Emenike, and the open treacherous dealings of some APC leaders who were in monthly payroll of the former ruling government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
The organization noted that these self-styled Abia party leaders had truncated many chances of the state chapter of the APC to clinch majority of elective seats in the state and national in past elections held across the 184 electoral ward of the state by the Nigeria electoral commission.
As one of pro-democracy and political advocacy bodies accredited to monitor the concluded 2023 election in Southeast geopolitical zone by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, the Youths for Progressive Governance informed Oleh and co-travellers that the sterling leadership qualities and membership of Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah propelled the overwhelming popularity being enjoyed by APC in Abia state and Southeast zone.
The organisation also reminded Mr Oleh that Dr Uche Ogah’s emergence as leader of the party and 2019 Abia Governorship flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress saw the election of party members as members of the State House of Assembly, a feast described as first of it’s kind in history of numerous electoral outings by the party in Abia state.
“Abia APC’s participation in 2019 led the party to record impressive performances in the governorship poll despite the open treachery exhibited by undemocratic elements under the guise of party leaders to sabotage the very opportunity of the party and the then Gubernatorial candidate, Dr Uche Ogah to emerge victorious in the 2019 poll conducted in Abia state.
“It remains on record that Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah mobilized and delivered Abia state to APC at his Uturu ward and local government area(Isiuakwato) in 2019 elections unlike most of these self-styled leaders that failed woefully to canvass support for APC and as well convince the electorates into voting APC in office. The unwholesome characters of these so-called critical party stakeholders was clear manifestation of betrayal, sabotage and distrusts, which the former ruling PDP-led government in Abia contracted and bankrolled them to carry out.
The group recalled during the last 2023 elections held in the state by the nation’s electoral umpire, Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah invested huge personal resources to persecute all electioneering campaigns embarked by APC, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and all other candidates of the party who participated during the last elections in Abia state.
“Not only investing his personal resources in party campaigns, Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah mobilized eligible voters across nooks and crannies of Abia state and they reaffirmed their massive supports by overwhelmingly voted and elected Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, and as well APC members from Abia extraction as members of the national and state assemblies in 2023. And Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah demonstrated the capacity and spirit of a loyal party member, and equally mobilized people of Abia North senatorial district that saw Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s election for second term in office.
The group also informed Mr Oleh that legislative redundancy and the sit-tight leadership style of Mrs Nkeiruka Onyejiocha birthed her outright rejection by people of Isiuakwato/umunneochi federal constituency during the house of representatives election held in 2023.
“Insinuating that Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah worked against Onyejiocha is seen as being economical with the truths, and that can’t be justified by Nnamdi Oleh and his paymasters. Obviously, this recent tantrums by this disgruntled Oleh on Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah is borne out of selfish political aggrandizements, and solely orchestrated to taunt the former minister’s sterling leadership qualities and sow seed of discords between President Tinubu, critical Abia party stakeholders and Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah. And this coordinated attacks on the foremost Nigerian industrialist is already dead on arrival.
On giant strides recoreded by Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah as Minister of the federal Republic of Nigeria under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, the Youths For Progressive Governance drew Nnamdi Oleh ‘s attention that Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah facilitated the training of hundreds of indigent Abia sons and daughters in Solid Mineral Processing organized by federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development.
“Numerous reforms engendered in Nigeria mining sector by the former minister attracted applauses from the then President Buhari during the assessment exercise carried out on federal Ministries, departments and agencies (MDA’s). These reforms initiated by Dr Uchechukwu Ogah fostered increase in internally revenue generation of the ministry which the then government channeled in building critical infrastructures across the geopolitical zones of Nigeria”, the group added.
Continuing, the progressive youth group further drew the attention of Nnamdi Oleh that Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah as a member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, secured government approval for fully construction of Okigwe-ABSU-Uturu-Akara road, facilitated employment of indigenes of Abia state in ministries, departments and agencies controlled by the federal government, and as well facilitated inclusion of Abia citizens in Social investments and human development programs initiated by government, wherein hundreds of Nigerian youths, elderly men and women were empowered to become business shop owners, and self-productive.
Before his sojourn to public leadership, Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah achieved milestones in private sector-driven business investments as he sited his numerous business conglomerates that specialized in food production, oil and gas, manufacturing of different assorted products ranging from plastic chairs, tables etc.
“This industrial revolutions by Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah in Abia state engendered job creation as thousands of youths are currently engaged in business of manufacturing, reducing high rate of joblessness and restiveness commonly associated with youths in the society.
While admonishing opportunitic Nnamdi Oleh to look for lucrative ventures, and refrain from serving as willing tool to sow seed of discords among leaders of the APC in Abia state, the socio-political organization therefore vowed that no amount of campaign of calumny will deter positive efforts and laudable gains recorded Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah in societal development and human empowerments.
The End….
By Okey Maduforo Awka
The former member that represented Anambra East and West Federal Constituency Chief Chinedu Obidigwe has denied a social media handle where he was said to have made Prof Charles Soludo the Governor of Anambra state.
Obidigwe further stated that the report did neither emanate from him or from his Media Aides urging the party not to believe what he called attempt at setting a negative agenda in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Obidigwe who is an Aspirant of the party for the Anambra East and West Federal Constituency accused enemies of the party being sponsored by opposition parties to creat problems .
According to the Media Assistant to Obidigwe Mr Dominic Okagbue in a statement;
“The attention of Hon. Chinedu Benjamin Obidigwe has been drawn to misleading and unfounded claims/propaganda being circulated on various social media platforms through a pseudo account, alleging that Obidigwe said he installed the Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, as Governor in 2021”
“We wish to state, without any iota of equivocation, that such a statement never emanated from Hon. Chinedu Obidigwe. It is a desperate move by his political enemies who are bent on tarnishing his image as a tool and technique to advance their unmerited aspirations”
“Obidigwe, in 2021, was merely an electorate with just one vote. Even though he voted for the Governor and APGA, the question remains: can one man’s vote make a Governor?”
“Governor Soludo was elected and made Governor through the collective votes of Ndi Anambra, both in his first and second terms. We therefore call on the reading public to disregard such rumours and treat them as faceless and unfounded allegations geared towards the character assassination of an innocent man” he said.
A former Kano State Governor and leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, says northern political leaders conducted a deliberate assessment of potential allies before settling on Peter Obi as the most capable partner to prosecute the 2027 presidential campaign.
He dismissed concerns about a hidden power struggle between his camp and Obi’s.Politics
Kwankwaso made the disclosure in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, offering one of his most detailed accounts yet of how the North-Southeast political alliance within the NDC was formed.
“I looked around together with our leadership in the north to say, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together with us honestly so that we can move this country? Along the line, we realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it. That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
Kwankwaso, a two-term former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 2023, leads the Kwankwasiyya movement, a grassroots political force with deep loyalty across Kano and parts of northern Nigeria.Nigeria travel guide
He left the NNPP amid internal disputes before joining the NDC alongside Obi earlier this month.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, ran on the Labour Party platform in 2023 and drew massive youth-driven support across the South and urban centres, though he did not win.
Both men formally joined the NDC on Sunday, May 3, defecting from the crisis-hit African Democratic Congress.Politics
At the party’s national convention on Saturday in Abuja, Kwankwaso backed the NDC’s decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, describing it as a step toward fairness, healing and national cohesion.
Responding to a question about whether the alliance concealed a quiet rivalry between both camps, Kwankwaso argued that friction between principals and their deputies was a product of greed, not structural tension.
“The problem people are having, especially leaders, is that they are too greedy to the extent that they begin to have issues. There is so much to do. You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he said.
He said his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and later as governor of Kano State, showed that political partnerships could hold under pressure.
“I had an opportunity to work with my speaker and we worked very well. I was in Kano for eight years despite the difficulty of my then deputy governor. We were able to work for eight years amicably to the extent that I handed over to him,” he said.
Kwankwaso extended the argument beyond his personal experience, saying the same principle applied at the federal level.
In the Senate and other places, in the NDDC, we worked amicably with people. There is so much to be done and that’s why you have even ministers, other executives, advisors and so on. I don’t see from my experiences of the past why deputies or vice would fight with the president or governor,” he said.
He grounded the alliance in Nigerian political history, tracing a lineage of productive North-Southeast partnerships from the first republic to the present.Nigeria travel guide
“Right from the beginning, this sort of alliance has been in existence. Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did during their time,” he said.
He also referenced the collaboration between former Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and leaders of the NCNC, as well as that of former President Shehu Shagari and his vice president, Alex Ekwueme, in the second republic.
“So also in the second republic, immediately after the war, our leaders, Shagari and others, worked very closely with the southeast, with Alex Ekwueme as his vice president. They are our friends. We want to work together with them,” he said.Politics
Kwankwaso also noted that subsequent administrations had shifted power-sharing away from the South-East, a pattern he suggested the current alliance was correcting.
“There was a change during the third republic where for many obvious reasons an election was annulled and the government under the military decided to bring in Shonekan from the South-West.
Even after that, the military and other leaders worked together and brought in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West again. Even Bola Tinubu probably is a beneficiary of all that,” he said.
He was emphatic that the choice of Obi was not driven by regional sentiment alone.
“It wasn’t just because we are going to the South-West just because of the South-West. No. We realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it and that’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
The movement of both men into the NDC has triggered a wave of defections, with senators, House of Representatives members and political blocs aligned with their former coalition gravitating toward the new party, rapidly reshaping calculations ahead of the 2027 elections.
The alliance pairs Kwankwaso’s northern grassroots structure and disciplined voter mobilisation with Obi’s national youth engagement and urban electoral momentum, positioning the NDC as one of the main opposition platforms set to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2027
Former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has dismissed suggestions that his exit from the African Democratic Congress has created a damaging split in the opposition.
He said he and Atiku Abubakar may yet work together before the 2027 general election.
Kwankwaso spoke in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, responding to concerns that his move to the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside Peter Obi had effectively divided the opposition into two competing blocs ahead of the polls.
“Now, we may still work together before the election. I personally, and I think even Obi himself, decided to leave ADC not because we are fighting with Atiku or anybody there. We decided to leave that party because we realised that there are some issues,” he said
He said the ADC was contending with three major unresolved problems that he believed would make it difficult for the party to field candidates, without specifying what those issues were.
“Whether they will be able to field candidates in that party or not is just a matter of time. It’s not like we had a primary election,” he said
The remarks come after Atiku recently claimed on Arise TV that Kwankwaso’s popularity was confined to Kano State and further divided there by Governor Abba Yusuf.
Atiku, who is seeking the presidency on the ADC platform, also described himself as the most popular politician of northern extraction, saying none of his contemporaries, including Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Nasir El-Rufai, commanded a voter base across the North as wide as his.
Kwankwaso did not engage the slight directly, but made clear he bore no grudge.
“Politics is just like a game. I’m not fighting anybody and I’m not expecting anybody to fight me. I have no issue with that. I think we are past that level now,” he said.
He challenged those predicting a vote split in Kano to wait for the election result before drawing conclusions.
“Let’s wait for the election and see whether votes are split in Kano or not,” he said.
Kwankwaso also acknowledged a history of working with Atiku, recalling that he served as the former vice president’s northern coordinator during the 2019 presidential election.
“There was an election in 2019 in Port Harcourt. He won the election. I was his coordinator for the north. We worked for him,” he said.
He traced his broader relationship with Atiku to the 2015 APC presidential primary in Lagos, where he placed second behind Muhammadu Buhari, with Atiku third.
By Okey Maduforo, Awka
The Anambra State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expelled 30 members of the party for instituting legal actions against the party.
The affected members include some aspirants for the National Assembly, and their expulsion may disqualify them from participating in the party’s primary elections.
Disclosing this shortly after the meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the party, the State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Sir Valentine Iyiegbu, told reporters that the decision was in line with Section 21, Subsection 5 of the party’s constitution.
“The party discussed those who took the party to court, and many of them are contesting for the House of Representatives tickets of the party,” he said.
“The matter comes up tomorrow, and the SEC stated that what the party constitution stipulates would be followed, which is outright expulsion from the party under Article 21, Subsection 5.”
“The SEC actually ratified their expulsion because they did not exhaust all the internal avenues provided by the party to resolve their grievances,” he added.
Iyiegbu noted that the only reprieve available to the expelled members would be for them to withdraw their court cases.
“It is only when the matters are withdrawn from the court that the party can consider listening to them,” he said.
Speaking on the party’s primary elections, he explained:
“In the case of those contesting for the tickets of the Federal House of Representatives, all the eleven positions have aspirants, while for the Senate, the three positions are also being contested. The screening committees were here to perform their duties,” he noted.
The party also ratified the appointment of a five-man Primary Elections Committee headed by Sir Izuchukwu Okeke, the State Organising Secretary of the party.
By PETRUS OBI
Frontline aspirant for the Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency seat, Anayo Onwuegbu, has successfully completed the screening exercise conducted by the All Progressives Congress House of Representatives screening panel in Abuja ahead of the party primaries scheduled for Friday, May 15, 2026.
Speaking after the exercise, Onwuegbu expressed satisfaction with the screening process, describing it as a reflection of the party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and credible leadership selection ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The aspirant, who is seeking to represent Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency under the platform of the APC, stated that he remains focused and prepared to continue to offer quality representation to the people of the constituency.
According to him, “The process once again highlights our party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and the emergence of credible leadership as we prepare for the 2027 general elections.”
He reaffirmed his dedication to the development of the constituency, pledging to serve the people with commitment and purpose if elected.
The APC House of Representatives primaries are expected to hold nationwide on Friday as aspirants battle for the party’s tickets ahead of the 2027 elections.
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