Facts have emerged as to how the former Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) constituted himself into a clog in the wheel of progress of APGA. Many of the members of APGA widely regarded as the party of choice of the core Igbo people of Nigeria regret the 8 years of retrogressive chairmanship of the long-red-capped chief. 

According to sources who spoke recently at the venue of the ongoing Election petition tribunal sitting in Awka, it was Victor Umeh's high-handedness, corruption and selfishness that has kept APGA in a state of permanent stunted comatose growth, especially after the death of its founding icon, late Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu.

The members regretted that APGA as a party has never really grown beyond its shadows due to Victor Umeh's purposeless leadership. The said Victor Umeh, it was said, used the position of chairmanship of the party for over 8 years to amass wealth and corruptly enrich himself to the detriment of the party. He always 'sold' the party's tickets to the highest bidders, said one Ike Okoye who has been a member of the party since 2005. 

He reiterated how Victor Umeh turned APGA into a personal ATM and used same to make money for himself to the amazement of other party leaders and faithfuls including the former Governor Peter Obi. Mr. Okoye who said he knew Umeh before he joined APGA from PDP in 2004 after he was unable to make a success of his estate management career in Enugu. 

Then, Umeh could hardly afford to fuel his rickety car and pay his rent. But today, Umeh is a multi-millionaire even in foreign currency and has taken chieftaincy titles across Igboland.

Describing how Umeh used APGA to make money, Okoye said Umeh collected the sum of N5m each from all the 21 LG Caretaker Committee chairmen to endorse their appointments in 2011. This was the time when the party was licking its wounds of defeat from PDP after the 2011 general elections. 

Again, in 2012, at the height of its disagreement with former Governor Peter Obi, Umeh invited the oil baron, Ifeanyi Ubah and offered him the APGA gubernatorial ticket. It is on record that Umeh collected over N50m from Mr Ubah and pocketed same. 

When Ubah finally left APGA for Labour Party, Umeh also invited former CBN Governor and offered him the guber ticket for the sum of N30m which he pocketed. Again, when finally he reconciled with Peter Obi before the 2013 Anambra guber elections, he collected over N500m from Governor Peter Obi to drop Soludo from the race.

Illustrating further how Umeh made money from APGA, Okoye narrated that Umeh demanded the sum of N10m each from all the top contending candidates of APGA including Henry Obaze, Chinedu Idigo, Chike Obidigbo, Paul Odenigbo, etc. failing which he got them disqualified from the race.

It is also said that APGA accounts were not audited under Umeh and as such not able to give account of his financial spending of the many hundreds of millions that accrued to the party under his watch. Now that Umeh has been ousted out of the party and a new executive in place, Okoye said many of the party's faithful members are now optimistic that the party will start growing from strength to strength.

WRITTEN BY Ejiofor Mba