Chime not a member of our party – Enugu APC

The Enugu State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) said yesterday that former Governor Sullivan Chime has not joined the party.

State chairman of the party, Dr. Ben Nwoye, who briefed newsmen yesterday at the party’s secretariat in Enugu, said contrary to reports that Chime had dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the APC, the former governor had not told anybody that he joined the party.

Nwoye said if there was such a development, as the party chairman, he would be the most competent official of the party to announce it.

Chime’s purported defection to APC followed a Facebook post by the party’s South-East zonal publicity secretary, Hycenth Ngwu, who claimed Chime had joined APC.

Nwoye said although the party’s doors were wide open for all true democrats and progressives in the state, there were procedures to be followed.

“What happens is that the state presents new party members to the ward and not the zonal structure of the party as was reported. For instance, when I receive Chime, I will submit him to the South-East zonal structure. We don’t work from up to down, we work from down- upward,” he said.

Nwoye also said the party does not announce membership on social media platforms, rather, “we invite journalists both the print and electronic to come and cover such exercise.

“I want to use this medium to ask members of the public and the media to disregard the Facebook information which is far from the truth. At any rate, Chime has since said that he is not yet a member of APC, but confirmed that he has dumped the PDP while still consulting on the next party to join’’.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria( NAN), on Friday in Enugu, Chime explained that his decision to quit the PDP was because the party was “no longer in existence in the true sense of it’’.

According to Chime, “The PDP, we used to be members of is dead. The party I joined in 1999 and had the opportunity of leading in the state for eight years is no longer in existence.

“We have two groups claiming to be in charge of the party as chairman. Of these two, none of them can actually lay claim to the chairmanship of the party. There is no provision in PDP’s Constitution for interim caretaker committee led by Sen. Ahmed Maikarfi. The PDP convention has no power to set up a caretaker committee and did not seek to amend the party’s constitution’’.