The first Casualty of the merger of key opposition parties has emerged. Today,Saturday, 7th July, 2013, the Chairman of Imo state chapter of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Vitalis Orikezie Ajumbe resigned his appointment as Chairman of the party in Imo State resigned.
Here is full text of Ajumbe's resignation/ Valedictory speech:
A VALIDATORY SPEECH PRESENTED BY THE IMO STATE CHAIRMAN, ALL NIGERIA PEOPLES PARTY, ANPP, DR. VITALIS ORIKEZE AJUMBE TO THE IMO STATE ANPP EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ON JULY 05, 2013 AT THE IMO STATE ANPP SECRETARIAT, 129A IKENEGBU LAY-OUT OWERRI
Dear Colleagues,
I welcome you to another meeting of the State Executive Committee, which we have been having every Month since April 6, 2004 when I took over first, as the Chairman, Caretaker Committee, and on August 10, 2006 when I emerged the winner as the substantive State Chairman. On July 03, 2010, I re-contested for the State chairmanship position and won. As at today, I am on my last tenure as the Chairman of ANPP Imo State chapter.
Having held this position successfully for about 9 years, I thus have become the oldest State Chairman of ANPP in Nigeria. I am proud to say that I feel fulfilled serving our Party well even on the faces of challenges especially, lack of funding of our chapter by the National Headquarters.
PARTY FUNDING:
The lone funding of our Party in Imo State by me, adversely, affected my personal businesses whose progress depreciated. Before I took over as the State Chairman, I had 30 staff in my private company both in Nigeria and London, but now I have 6; I was making monthly international business trips, but now 2 times in a year. But due to my love for the Party, I diverted my business money to the funding of the Party, believing, as I was promised by the National Headquarters of our Party that I should continue to use my money to fund the Party until the economy of the Party improves, which unfortunately, never improved till today. But this secret, I never revealed to you as I kept making you believe that there was enough money to run the Party just to continue to keep you people together. If you see my concealing the Party’s secret as a deceit, please forgive me.
I have written to the National Chairman of our Party on April 6, this year to refund me the sum of N22, 423,350 (Twenty two Million, four hundred and twenty three thousand, three hundred and fifty Naira) being money I spent in executing the projects of the Party from September 06, 2004 to March 31, 2013 (excluding other money I spent in funding some candidates of our Party in the past elections and funding of personal financial problems of some of our members) as detailed below.
We wrote to the National Chairman this letter in pursuance to our resolution during our State Executive committee meeting of April 03, 2013 as this has become necessary at this time when our great Party is merging with other Political Parties to form a new Party and the new Party shall not inherit the liabilities of ANPP.
PAYMENT TO THE LANDLORD OF OUR SECRETARIAT
I shall at this juncture thank Chief Ibe, who is the Landlord of our Party secretariat who has been so magnanimous to allow us to remain in this office having owed him house rent for some years now. I had paid him from my pocket, the sum of N1, 200,000 while waiting for the Party to reimburse me and which, unfortunately it has not. I had written to the National chairman severally on this issue in which I pleaded with our National chairman to make money available to pay the Landlord, but none of my letters were replied. It is unfair to continue owing our Landlord which has made him to go to court against the ANPP. Efforts should be made to pay him. About N300, 000,000 was made available by the ANPP Governors to the National leadership of ANPP to offset the liabilities of state chapters, but surprisingly, only the States in the North-East and North-West were paid but the States in the North-Central, South-West, South-South and South-East were not paid. This has given credence to the notion that ANPP is a Northern Party.
On June 06, 2013, I wrote the National Chairman a reminder to my April, 06, 2013 letter and in fact went to his office to discuss the issue of the Imo liabilities but he told me that there was no money. As a man of conscience and responsibility too, who holds his integrity to the highest esteem, I would not want my image and prized reputation to be rubbished. ANPP should pay her Landlord his rent as money has been made available for that purpose.
In my April 06, 2013 letter to the National Chairman, I advised him to mandate the National Auditor of ANPP to visit the state chapters of ANPP in order to audit their accounts as this will help determine the correct assets and liabilities of the chapters and reimbursement thereafter. But unfortunately, the Party is unconcerned about the plight of its chapters.
I am happy that we all have been together all this while to understand ourselves that I can vouch for some of you as some of you can vouch for me also. I believe I have been very transparent in all my dealings with you that most of you who believe in me may join my political structure when called upon to do so in future. I thank my hard working State executive members, the State working committee, Chairmen of the Local government and ward chapters, Women and youth leaders and our enduring secretariat staff for all your supports to me.
RESIGNATION AS THE STATE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBER OF ANPP
I love ANPP. When I joined ANPP, I told myself that I would continue to remain a member of the Party for life because ANPP is the most democratic political Party in Nigeria where freedom of speech and freedom of expression exist. And I remained consistent despite all carrots dangled on me to join the ruling Parties in Imo State. The problem of ANPP has always been the unpatriotic behaviours of those who have benefited from the Party either as Governors, Parliamentarians or Government officials who are not interested in seeing the Party grow. Now, they are joining APC thinking that it will afford them a better opportunity, but, bet me, they will be disappointed. APC to me, is a good concept but with elements of some unclear components and that is why, I have no more interest in it. Promoters of APC should not deceive Nigerians. Future will vindicate me.
Yesterday, I wrote a letter which I sent to the National Chairman of ANPP notifying the Party of my resignation as the State Chairman of ANPP as well as a member of ANPP with effect from today, July 05, 2013. My letter of resignation has already been written and sent to the Chairman of my Amaimo ward, in Ikeduru Local Government area, Mr. Desmond Nwagwu who has acknowledged same. In no distant time, I shall make public, my next political movement.
This address serves as a handover note to the State Deputy Chairman who takes over from me in accordance with Article 16.2, section (i) on page 26 of the ANPP constitution.
I thank you for your time and May God bless you and lead you home safely.
Dr. Vitalis Orikeze Ajumbe
Fmr. State Chairman.
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