Kokoroyo Martins, Asaba
Chairmen and secretaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the nine local government areas of Delta North Senatorial District have suspended the senatorial chairman of the party, Mr. George Okafor, for allegedly sponsoring anti-party activities.
Okafor was also said to have stolen the bags of rice meant for his party members across the senatorial district during the last Christmas season.
In a suspension letter addressed to the state chairman of the party, the APC local government chairmen and secretaries did not only accuse Okafor of grossly misappropriating the 2016 Christmas rice package, they also accused him of collecting N10,000 each from the LGAs as transportation cost for the rice.
The letter dated February 6 was jointly signed by eight of the nine chairmen and six out of the nine secretaries of the local government executives.
They alleged that the senatorial chairman short-changed the various local government area executives by holding on to four bags of rice each, while also allegedly collecting N10,000 each from the LGAs for the purpose of
transporting the bags of rice.
But in a swift reaction, Okafor dismissed his purported suspension, saying that those who were suspending him were already serving their
indefinite suspension from party members in their various local government
areas for misappropriating the 20 bags of rice each that were given them
for onward distribution during the Christmas celebration.
Okafor said that his sin was that he endorsed the
suspension order slammed on the embattled chairmen and secretaries by
members of the party at the local government level.
Chairman of the party in Oshimili South Local Government Area, Ogbueshi Ben
Onwuka who read the suspension letter at the end of a stakeholders’ meeting in Asaba said Okafor was not fit to continue to pilot the affairs of the party in Delta North.
“Chief George Okafor, in his usual game of short changing, only gave out 20 bags of rice to the Delta north LGAs and concealing four bags from each LGA
to himself, amounting to 36 bags of rice and equally collected the sum of N10,000 from each LGA for rice transportation refund and alternatively seized a bag of rice from any LGA who could not afford the money.
“Importantly, his failure to return/refund the concealed bags of rice and the money falsely collected led to our resolution that he is not fit to pilot the affairs of APC, Delta north in relation to strong party loyalists,” the letter read in parts.
“Aside being habitual short changer, Chief George Okafor is proven to be working for PDP and has recently collected good money from PDP to cause serious crises/distabilisation activities in APC, Delta north structure. At the moment, he is very busy creating/inaugurating parallel LGA executives
in all the nine local government areas in order to ensure that APC in Delta north senatorial district would not be able to actively participate in the forthcoming Delta State Local Government Elections, which is contrary to
our party constitution.
“So, such a political self aggrandizer and gambler must not be allowed to
destroy our party structure and deny us long expected political fortunes.
It is important to remind you Sir that on the 2nd of November, 2014, the
Delta north senatorial members took a similar resolution against Chief
George Okafor for his fund misappropriation and we were pleaded to, and he
was given a chance to change but he has remained unrepentant,” it added.
