By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief) @CelestineOkaf11
Fresh facts emerged on Monday on the real reasons why the National Working Committee (NWC) of one of the leading opposition party in Nigeria, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), expelled it's 2023 Presidential candidate, Mr Dumebi Kachikwu, and seven other members of the party, on Saturday.
NIGERIAN NEWSLEADER Newspaper gathered from authoritative sources within the party, that the sacking of Kachikwu as the flagbearer of the party in the coming presidential election, followed a discreet finding by the leadership of the ADC, through its intelligence channel, that Kachikwu was actually 'a mole' allegedly planted in the party by one of the leading political party in the country, ostensibly to destabilize it from being a formidable platform to be used to blunt its expected chances in the presidential poll
NEWSLEADER also gathered from a top ADC source, that Dumebi Kachikwu allegedly became a 'willing tool' deployed by the said 'big political party' that have once controlled the levers of federal power in Nigeria, to prevent Dr Kingsley Muoghalu, who was allegedly the candidate to beat at the ADC presidential primary held in June, from emerging as the party's flagbearer.
According to findings by this newspaper, the original calculation by the so-called leading political party, was to "block the chances of Muoghalu or any formidable Igbo from the core South East geo-political zone from emerging as a presidential candidate of the ADC".
The ADC source also revealed that Kachikwu was allegedly "funded very generously by the mafia political coup plotters in that big party to buy his way to the party ticket through the delegates who were oblivious of the plot on-going. Even the leadership of the ADC did not know that the party had been infiltrated by an agent of an opponent mafia political party, until the harm was done by Kachikwu and his gang".
The source further disclosed that the alleged scripted design by the said 'big political party' was to prevent any situation where both Dr Kingsley Muoghalu and Mr Peter Obi would emerge as candidates of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the primaries of those parties.
It was gathered from the party source, that intelligence reports available to the ADC, allegedly had it that the permutations by the alleged political coupists in the said 'big party' was that the emergence of either Dr Muoghalu or Peter Obi in both ADC or PDP, would definitely spin an unprecedented mass movement of high proportion of voter's support for the candidates in the presidential poll. This, however, gave rise to an alleged orchestrated plots to clinically frustrate Peter Obi in his former party, the PDP, and also to ensure that Muoghalu was allegedly supplanted with Kachikwu's election, in the ADC.
The inside ADC source also told NEWSLEADER that what the 'mafia plotters' in the so-called opposing 'big party' never reckoned with, was that Peter Obi will suddenly quit the PDP and join a relatively politically 'inconsequential' party like the Labour Party (LP), not to talk of pulling the kind of voter's crowd he is currently pulling on the political space.
The ADC top source said: "Those coup plotters thought that if they were able to muscle Dr Kingsley Muoghalu out in the ADC, it will be easy for them to contain Peter Obi in the PDP, knowing full well that his chances of winning at the PDP presidential primary on Saturday, May 28, was slim. These people did not factor that Peter Obi will leave the PDP at the time he did, to join the Labour Party. They didn't even imagine that Mr Obi will become so popular on the Labour Party platform as to threaten their chances in the coming election.
"They also know that it is really the turn of Ndigbo to produce a president for this country, therefore, their thinking was that if the Igbos were emasculated and schemmed out on all major political platforms in Nigeria, the Igbo presidency project will naturally die, and their chances will be enhanced".
NEWSLEADER was also told by another top party source in the ADC, that it's former presidential candidate, Dumebi Kachikwu, allegedly held series of secret meetings with one of the governors in the South South geo-political zone who is a core player in the 2023 elections, and who is also alleged to be the 'major financier' of Kachikwu in ADC on behalf of his party and their influential presidential candidate. The alleged meetings by Kachikwu and the said Niger Delta governor, according to the source, was on how to further perfect the plots on the internal destabilization of the ADC ahead of the polls, before the bubble burst last weekend.
The source however revealed that what actually rankled the leadership of the ADC most, beyond the alleged anti-party and associated accusations against Kachikwu and seven other party members, was that the dismissed ADC presidential flagbearer abandoned everything about his campaign and promotion of the party for the 2023 elections.
According to this source, Kachikwu, uptil his sack from the party at the weekend, had not set up a Presidential Campaign Office and neither has he constituted a Campaign Council like other flagbearers of the parties for the election, just a week to the official kick-off of the election Campaign. "What Kachikwu was busy doing in the party was to be going about blackmailing party officials and accusing every party member of one imaginary thing or the other, just to cover his sins.
"Immediately after his election as the presidential candidate of our party (ADC), Mr Kachikwu completely absconded. Nobody saw him again. He was no longer involved in anything or in any activity in party again. He was busy calling party members thieves. This is a man who hasn't brought a kobo to the party's purse, apart from what he spent during the presidential primary. Is he not supposed to help inject funds into the party for the election like other presidential candidates? He just left the party like that. Nobody saw him, nobody knew his programme.
"How does the ADC, as a party, go into the election with an absentee presidential candidate whose actions are clearly out of tune with the interest and rules of the party? That was why the NWC of the party met and reviewed his matter and consequently suspended him and later acted on a disciplinary panel's recommendation to expel him and his cohorts".
Meanwhile, NIGERIAN NEWSLEADER learnt that the leadership of the ADC is meeting today (Monday, September 19, 2022) at the party's headquarter in Wuse, Zone 6, Abuja, to deliberate, among other issues, on the case of sacked Dumebi Kachikwu and others, and the next options for the party ahead of the general elections. This newspaper however gathered that following the outcome of today's meeting, the ADC might approach the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to expunge from it's election records, the name of Kachikwu as the presidential candidate of the party.
It is however, not clear, as at time of filing this report, what would be the ADC's alternative to it's expelled presidential flagbearer, Mr Dumebi Kachikwu. Besides the said party meeting on Monday, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ADC will be addressing a world news conference on Tuesday, September 20, 2022 in Abuja, on the recent developments within the party and it's plans for the coming general elections.
Recall, that the African Democratic Congress (ADC), on Saturday, sacked it's presidential candidate, Mr Dumebi Kachikwu, via a statement by it's founding National Chairman, Chief Ralphs Okey Nwosu (Ikolo Awka), on behalf of the party's National Working Committee (NWC). The expulsion was the high point of the roiling crisis in the party over allegation of anti-party engagements by Kachikwu and others.
Before now, the ADC leadership had suspended Kachikwu and seven others since September 3, 2022. Their suspension was however recommended by a seven-man disciplinary panel set up to examine the allegations against them which bothers on anti-party conduct, gross misdemeanor and flagrant violations of the party's guiding rules for members.
Following a review of the report of the panel by the NWC, however, a decision was promptly taken by the management of the party to shoo them out. NNL.
