The Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Chief Uche Nnaji has frowned at what he called indiscriminate demolition of markets and peoples shops by the Enugu state government, without notice and compensation, thereby inflicting untold hardship on the traders leading to death of several traders in the last one year.

Nnaji spoke at Ogurute, Igbo-Eze North local government area of Enugu state on Sunday when he received more than 500 defectors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) into the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The leader of APC in Enugu state stressed that it was wrong to destroy people’s means of livelihood in the name of building modern motor parks without providing a reasonable alternative for them.

The Minister also expressed gratitude to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for appointing Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla, who is from the local government area, as the Chief of Naval Staff, and thanked the people for their decision to join APC enmass.

Nnaji, who was accompanied by the State Chairman of APC, Barr Ugochukwu Agballah, the deputy governorship candidate of APC in 2023 elections, Barr George Ogara, Rt. Hon.Dennis Amadi, Chief Ohamadike Okwonkwo and the Pro-Chancellor/Chairman of the Governing Council of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia state, Comr. Fidelis Edeh, among other party leaders, stated that APC will do everything possible and under the law to displace the PDP government under Governor Peter Mbah in 2027 general elections.

He condemned an alleged attempt by the Igbo-Eze North local government authority and PDP leaders in the area to stop the mini-rally, which made the organizers change the original venue to another location, saying it was abuse of authority and political intolerance.

“We heard that some people were trying to abuse their authority by attempting to stop this gathering today, to the extent that we have to move from the original venue to this place. What we have come today is more of liberating our people.“Enugu has never had it this bad, and as I stand today, I imagine how a people can survive without something like Ogige Nsukka market. Ogige Nsukka market has gone; they have bulldozed Ogige Nsukka to ashes, without any notice.

Many of our people have died out of that singular act of government.“If you come to Enugu too, Holy Ghost suffered the same fate, Garki and Abakpa suffered the same fate, and Ogurute market here in Igbo-Eze North LGA suffered the same fate, and I wonder how our people who are predominantly businessmen can survive without trading.“An average Igbo man is a trader, so if you keep on destroying the markets, demolishing the markets without compensation, without providing an alternative, I don’t know how our people are going to survive and that is why we have brought out ourselves, come rain, come shine, that we are going to fight, we are going to do everything humanly possible and within the ambit of law to make sure that come 2027 our people will start rejoicing again.“We are moving to the Lion Building (Enugu State Government House), we are going to make our people happy, the road will be open.

It’s not a situation of opening CCTV for people to listen to governor or anybody in authority, I will meet you live, you will come we will have interaction with you live, and we will not be afraid of meeting our people, we will meet with our people when we get into government House come 2027,” the Minister asserted.

Nnaji stated that APC Enugu will not stop anybody who wants to defect to the party, noting that the door of the party will be open to welcome new members but that nobody will snatch the structure of the party from them.“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu knows that we are here, he knows we are doing all these things for the state and for him and for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He knows and he has our support 101 percent and he is behind us, we are APC.

We are not running away anywhere for anybody’s sake.“We will remain here and we will welcome anybody that wants to enter, anybody that wants to enter we’ll welcome him, but we’ll make sure we defeat him. If anybody enters we’ll welcome him and defeat him and throw him away. So we are waiting for people to come into this party, we want many people to come in, there is no preferential treatment; when they come in we’ll defeat them.“…And we thank the president and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, for appointing Vice Admiral Ogalla, who is from Igbo-Eze North, for making him the Chief of Naval Staff, we’ll keep thanking him for this,” the Minister stated.

In his remarks, the State Chairman of APC, Agballah thanked the defectors for joining APC saying that the disadvantage of belonging to small parties is that they won’t be able to protect their votes.“You know that in the last election, Labour Party won in Igbo-Eze North, LP won the House of Assembly, won the House of Rep, won everything but they were rigged out. Do you know why they were rigged out? It’s because they were in a one man show. One-man-show parties don’t go far, politics is like a market, one person does not constitute the market.

“I was once in a one man party, I contested for governorship under APGA, and APGA is a one man party. We did our best in APGA, I was even elected governor, not once but twice, but the votes were snatched from me. That’s why we are telling Igbo-Eze people who want to go far in politics to come into APC, APC is the ruling party.

”Some of the defectors are; Hon Ikechukwu Ogbugo, a former executive Vice Chairman Igbo-Eze North LGA under PDP; Hon Barr Osita Ugwuoke, Hon Festus Ayogu of PDP (Bravo), Chief Oliver Idoko (Ego Amaka Transport), Hon Emmanuel Itodo (E-Gas) and Prof. Onyeke A. Onyeke, former House of Assembly member under old Enugu state, and Hon Ojobor Ikechukwu (Jnr) Ebuge.Others are; Hon Emeka Okenyi, former Labour Party chieftain; Chief Onu Emmanuel, from PDP; Chief Cosmas Onu, former APGA chieftain; Sunday Eze, PDP; Idoko Uchenna, PDP; Eya Hilary, PDP; and Festus Ugwu, a former Executive Vice chairman of the local government under PDP, and their numerous supporters.

The defectors stated that they were joining APC because of the appointment of their brother as chief of Naval Staff as well as neglect by their former parties over the years.