An All Progressives Congress meeting held in a hotel in Awka, Anambra State, turned bloody on Sunday evening as the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, escaped mob attack.
According to Punch, as gunshots pervaded the scene, Ngige was whisked away by security agencies who repeatedly fired repelling shorts into the air to scare the mob who charged at him.
It was gathered that they alleged that the minister was trying to manipulate the result of the ward congress in his favour.
A member of the state’s ward congress committee, who was identified as Ali was not that lucky to escape as he was beaten to a pulp and stripped unclad on allegations that he was among those drafted in the state to work in favour of Ngige.
The candidate of the APC in the November 18, 2017 governorship election in Anambra, Dr Tony Nwoye, had openly accused Ngige in the meeting of plotting to hijack the party in the state.
In the harmonisation meeting held to address the discrepancies in the party’s ward congress, Nwoye told Ngige that he was usurping the functions of the Congress Committee by asserting that ward congress took place on Saturday in the state while it did not.
Nwoye said he had been refraining from speaking about Ngige’s audacity and impunity over the affairs of the party in the state to avoid being accused of being bitter because he ran and lost the election on the platform of the party.
He said, “Some of you here worked against me during that election, but my joy is that I lost the election and you lost too because most of you have not risen beyond the falling point.”
He said: “We have failed as a party because we do not have any position in Anambra, but It will not work for people to put this party in their pocket so that they can write election results in their houses.
“I will not let Ngige take the function of the panel. We have a panel that is supposed to conduct that congress, and they just came here today (Sunday), whereas you are trying to tell us that elections were held yesterday. How can Ngige be the one to conduct the congress when there is a committee?”
But Ngige denied the allegations, saying the party had no problem regarding the congress.
He described the congress as a “brotherly contest”, adding that “we are here to further the cause of the party.”
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