APC: WHY THE SCOURGE OF BAYWOOD-IBE, ADOLPHUS UDE, BEN NWOYE AND OTHERS SHOULD BE IGNORED BY THE PUBLIC.

Barr. Emeka Okwo

As a major stakeholder in APC and one who was sold out by the shameless fifth columnist saboteurs I deem it necessary to educate and inform our teeming members and the general public on why they should ignore the antics and social media noise of self-styled ‘leader and financier’ of APC in Enugu State, Emperor Baywood-Ibe and his co-trevelers, including former state chairman of APC, Ben Nwoye, and his former Deputy, Adolphus Ude.

The social media has been awash with the news report of a meeting of some people purporting to be APC members who purportedly met at the behest of Baywood-Ibe. They purportedly demanded for recognition of Adolphus Ude as the state chairman of APC in Enugu State among other bogus claims including that the position was zoned to Greater Awgu (made up of Awgu, Aninri and Oji River LGAs).

This is indeed laughable.

Of course there was no such meeting at Emperor Baywood Ibe’s community residence in the first place as our investigation revealed that the media report was a sponsored press release written by hirelings of Mr Emperor Ibe. Understandably, the media release was part of a grand design sponsored by Mr Ibe to create confusion in the party, having seen that his plot to foist a puppet chairman in the person of Ude had failed woefully. Baywood-Ibe and his co-travelers should be told that they are chasing shadows, as their well known mercantile political gimmicks has been busted.

For the records, APC state congress took place in Enugu state on October 16, 2021 at the Destiny Event Centre, Off Nza Street, Independence Layout, Enugu, where The Hon Barr. Ugochukwu H Agballah, in an open contest, overwhelmingly emerged as the Enugu state chairman of APC, as declared by the seven-man congress committee led by Dr. Ijeomah Arodiogbu, a committee properly constituted and accredited by the national leadership of the party. A report of the Congress Appeal Committee, who visited the state after the congress, had already been accepted by the national leadership of the party.


It is also noteworthy to state that the allegation that the Hon Barr, Agballah is not a member of APC, is not only false, but baseless and frivolous.

It was the former chairman of the party, Nwoye who received Agballah into the party secretariat at a much publicized stakeholders meeting where he said publicly that his annoyance was that Sen Ken Nnamani, the National Vice Chairman and Geoffrey Onyeama, the Minister of Foreign Affairs took a picture with Agballah at Abuja when they welcomed him into the party. Nwoye was therefore only angry that he was not given the opportunity of first doing a photo-up with Agballah, a big fish by all standards.

In APC, party registration is done at the ward level. Agballah’s ward chairman had stated at same function that Agballah had earlier registered with them at Udi ward during registration of members. All that happened before Nwoye was expelled from the party by members of his own executive led by his erstwhile deputy Hon Chikwado Chukwunta. An expulsion which was ratified by the whole LGAs and stakeholders and the national executive.

It is therefore crystal clear that Mr Baywood Ibe and his co-travelers are plying their well known professional practice of obtaining under false pretenses aka 419 in carrying out their political objectives :
A situation where a man, who randomly claims on media to have led the party in an election in which the party ended up not having agents anywhere in Enugu State and the party failed woefully garnering a paltry and disgraceful two percent of total votes cast yet he nominated his younger brother and personal aide Mr Ugonna Ibe into the cabinet of the state government as commissioner for Tourism.
This is part of the reasons the national executive of the APC decided to excise Mr Ibe and his co-travelers out of the power equations of the APC because they have been identified as moles in Enugu State APC.

Mr Emperor Ibe is a well known shameless agent of the PDP the ruling party in Enugu State aside from being a political contractor, who is not interested in the APC winning elections in Enugu state. His brother, Ugonna Ibe is the current Commissioner for Culture and Tourism in Enugu state after serving as the Chairman of Awgu local government area, a reward to Baywood Ibe for serving as agent of destabilization of APC while at the same time masquerading as leader and APC financier in the state.
APC members in the state are still living with the bitter experience and scam of the highest order meted on the party by Mr Emperor Ibe during the 2019 general elections when he boasted openly and told party members that he would fund the party campaigns including the guber campaign in the state but at the end of the day, the party, especially the guber candidate of the party during the 2019 elections, Sen Ayogu Ezeh still have bitter stories to tell about the political perfidy and horse-trading and sharp practices perpetrated by Mr Ibe which led to the party scoring only two percent of votes in the general elections.

One clear example was how Mr Emperor Ibe publicly donated fairly used Toyota Sienna vehicles to Ayogu Eze for his governorship campaign but only for the car dealers to arrive Enugu two weeks later to impound the vehicles and take them back to Lagos for breach of contract to pay for the vehicles. Mr Ibe puts himself up as a billionaire and was arrogantly and boastfully scaring off other financiers of the party claiming he had billions to spend in the governorship election. At the end he crashed Sen Ayogu’s gubernatorial campaign and did not contribute one dime to Sen Ayogu’s governorship campaign.

Ayogu Eze who is yet to recover from the world class deception is alive and can tell the story better.

Furthermore, Ibe’s house was turned into clearing house of PDP campaign activities including distribution of money to PDP candidates and agents on the night preceding the 2019 general elections. The former Vice Chairman of APC South East Chief Emma Eneukwu and Chief Geoffrey Onyeama were one of the first set of leaders who saw through the abracadabra but no one listened to them. Prominent leaders of APC in the state who were attending a crucial meeting of APC in Mr Emperor Ibe’s house during the run up to the elections and who witnessed the distribution of money sent by PDP to PDP members to their chagrin are living witnesses to this bizarre action. Mr Ibe reportedly told the astounded party members that he was in charge of PDP in Awgu local government area as well.

And even after the general elections, somebody who was supposed to be the leader of opposition went ahead to nominate his younger brother, Ugonna, who works for him, as Commissioner in the PDP-led state government. The same man is still going around shamelessly pretending to be leader of APC in the state.
These and other reasons made genuine APC leaders in Enugu state to sideline Baywood Ibe as they see him as an unrepentant and shameless mole and fraudulent political contractor. And as a result he was completely sidelined from the party activities; hence he did not participate in the ward, local government and state congresses of the party.
Even when Mr Emperor Ibe was invited by Imo State Governor, Sen Hope Uzodinma, he told the bewildered governor, just like he has been telling anybody who cares to listen to his tales by moonlight, that he spent over N1.2 billion on the party in Enugu state. The former state chairman of the party, Ben Nwoye, was always around Mr Ibe each time he goes around making those bogus claims.This made APC leaders in the state to come to the sad conclusion that Mr Ben Nwoye was part and parcel of the political scam. But such tales are only an extortionist gambit. And of course he failed woefully to extort money from the Imo state governor.

This same character has started again. He has been moving around claiming that he is contesting for presidency of Nigeria.

�This is another game. �

It is another ploy to deceive unwary but genuine presidential hopefuls to pay him in advance for the votes of Ndi Enugu. But that entire plan has been busted by the emergence of The Hon Barr Agballah as the chairman of APC in Enugu state.

Of course he knows that Agballah is a no nonsense and serious minded political mobilizer.
And that’s why in all their public paid media/publicity activities, they keep on insulting leaders of the party instead of directing their attacks and criticisms on the PDP-led government in the state.

They have insulted and castigated every leader of APC but they have never made any statement against PDP government their pay master.

It’s on record that Baywood Ibe has never said anything against PDP government; the same with Nwoye and his erstwhile deputy AC Udeh who rather makes statements inimical to the party in the state and zone in general. Nwoye is the only APC chairman in Nigeria who came out to tell the whole world (and its published in national papers) that it’s impossible to sell APC in South East! All Nwoye had done was to attack leading members of the party, including Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama and former Senate President, Ken Nnamani.

Today, Ibe and his co-travelers, including his hireling, Adolphus Ude have turned against the new Chairman of the party, Barr. Ugochukwu Agballah elected during the duly conducted state congress of the party.

They have continued their stock in trade, as they went ahead to conduct their own state congress, which the national leadership of the party did not and will never recognize.
The same man, as part of his shadow boxing and destabilization efforts, is sponsoring a court case against the party in Abuja, using one Kingsley Uduji, a hiring of his. This he does in collaboration with a woman SA to the president who claims she knows her way around the judicial system and can manipulate same for their devious purpose.

Even the national executive committee of APC and the Presidency are aware of Baywood Ibe’s role as a fifth columnist and confidence trickster in the party.

That was why the national leadership of the party on its own became more interested in Enugu state and specifically insisted that Baywood Ibe and Nwoye group should not be part of the process that will bring out a new chairman in the state.

And the national leadership was involved in the search for the new chairman of the party and specifically head-hunted Ugochukwu Agballah to come and rebrand and reposition APC in Enugu state to make it viable enough to win elections.

This is the crux of the matter and the main reason why the political contractors who have been using APC structure in the state to fleece both the state government and national leadership of the party of money, political appointments, contracts and other pecuniary benefits.

It is common knowledge that as long as Mr Emperor Ibe continues to parade himself as leader of APC, APC will never win any polling booth in Enugu state. No party all over the country has ever scored two percent in any election since independence but the two percent outing in Enugu state was as a result of the activities of Mr Baywood Ibe, and their likes. They negotiated for two percent.

It is also noteworthy that more than 90 percent of those who were initially being misled by Baywood and co, having realized their mistakes, had since returned to the Agballah-led state executive of the party. The members numbering more than 300 and led by the former State Legal Adviser, Barr. B. N. Nebe and former APC chairmen of Oji River and Enugu North LGAs, Chief Benson Eze and Chief Sunday Eshiokwu respectively, recently pledged their loyalty and resolve to work with Agballah to rebuild the party in Enugu state.

The major problem of APC in Enugu state is that professional fraudsters, who have a history of 419 (advanced fee fraud) as their main business and who are ex-convicts, convicted by the United States of America (USA) and Italian Courts, and those who have had professional misconduct cases are the ones calling the shots for APC. And that is why this political trade off of using APC as an instrument of nefarious business is thriving. This people have collaterized the party in order to use it as a basis to legitimize their illicit businesses.

It is only in Nigeria and APC Enugu State in particular that a State chairman and self styled leader who could not win a single polling booth out of the 2900 polling booths in Enugu during the 2019 elections would still have the audacity and temerity to lay claims to any type of leadership in the party. In saner climes they would have honorably resigned from their positions a day after the elections. But not so with Nwoye, Ude and Ibe. Their barefaced insistence to continue making gyratic pretensions to leading the party even when the national body and presidency and regional and state leaders have excised them clinically like cancerous cells from the party shows that the trio are a bunch of shameless desperadoes. Who have no modicum of self respect and responsibility.

We, therefore, call on the teeming APC members and the general public to ignore these political contractors, who are only interested in destabilizing the party because the party has been rescued from their jaws and mercantilist scheme.

The party, however, will continue to pursue peaceful means of bringing every member on board and to address any genuine concern(s) that will lead to greater harmony for the interest and success of the party