Enugu Action Alliance Fumes Over ‘Unknown Petitioner’ At Tribunal

The Action Alliance, Enugu State chapter, weekend, explained its own side of what transpired during the pre-hearing trial at the state election petition tribunal when ‘a lawyer from the moon’ filed a parallel petition, which the state chairman of the party, Hon Ogbonna Okafor, claimed did not emanate from the party.

Okafor, who clarified what happened in an interview with newsmen in Enugu, said AA in the state as well as its national directorate was taken aback when the petition was called for hearing. According to him, the petitioner was not known by the party either was he representing the guber candidate of the party ‘because AA had a party primary devoid of rancour to warrant the emergence of another candidate’.

Okafor said, “Some desperado, who is not a member of Action Alliance, by the name Kalu Kalu, who is not known to me as the state chairman, and also not known by our national directorate, came and instituted a petition at the state tribunal. It became an embarrassment to me. Because of the controversy it generated, we made a case that the unknown Kalu’s petition be discontinued.

“One funny thing is that AA never had problems in our guber primary, let alone that anybody was not treated fairly to warrant what Kalu is representing. We only have one guber candidate, in the person of Barr Daniel Chukwunonso Ogbeh, who had some scores during the polls. He participated fully. INEC is aware. The current development is alien to INEC to get this petition from an unknown Kalu Kalu.

“Our party is in court, and not our governorship candidate. The party is contesting that what happened during the March 18 guber polls in the state is improper, and should not be allowed to continue. The party is demanding that the election be cancelled. The case of Kalu Kalu is unknown to us. Who briefed him? The national directorate doesn’t know him. He came from the moon.”

Our correspondent reports that when the matter was mentioned with the petitioner absent, AA raised alarm that the petition in question did not emanate from it, and asked the tribunal to quash it. The tribunal asked AA to harmonise its house, and fixed May 19th for the continuation of the trial.