The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffery Onyeama has dismissed as “mischievous and misleading”, the report that he ordered security Operatives to bounce anyone during a APC Stakeholders meeting of Enugu West Senatorial zone held on Sunday, at Dome event Centre Enugu.
Journalist101 had earlier reported that some security agents acting on the instruction of the minister, bounced back and manhandled some top officials of the Buhari Support Group (BSO) and other Chieftains of the All progressive Congress APC, from the district who came for the meeting.
Speaking to Journalist101, Chief Flavour Eze, the Special Assistant to the Minister on general duties said that wasn’t the true reflection of what happened at the venue of the said meeting.
Chief Eze narrated that “The Minister conveyed a highly regulated meeting and invited those that suit into the conversation and few journalists. It will be wrong for people to be circulating the message that journalists were barred from the meeting.
“The meeting was for Enugu West Senatorial zone and each local government sent in 10 names of their representatives. Udi local government produced 20 names and Onwusi wasn’t included. If your name isn’t in the list, that means the leaders in your council area didn’t submit your name.”
When asked why the Secretary of the party in Udi local government, Mr. Felix ‘Ebubeagu’ Okafor wasn’t allowed in since he’s holding a big stake in the area, Mr Eze said he was duly invited and his name was also on the list (a copy of which he sent to us).
He alleged that Mr Okafor refused to show his invitation to the security persons which is the pass needed to enter into the meeting.
Eze went further to explain that the security situation of the country and the dignitaries invited necessitated the regulation of the meeting.
When contacted for clarification, Mr. Felix Okafor said the action of the conveners of the meeting was “deliberate” as they wrote his name on the list and used a number which isn’t his.
“I refer to the list contained in the PDF, No 11. Ebubeagu Okafor Felix, phone number they fraudulently used is 07046406891 which the unknown armed men insisted was the person invited & not me.
“They rejected all my explanation in the presence of Journalists who were also refused entry to the venue.”
Mr Okafor insisted that using the number that’s not his was premeditated alleging that both the Minister and his PA knows him very well and have his phone number.
“During the just concluded membership registration, I was the LGA Registration Chairman that supervised the the Registration of both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his PA Mr. Flavor Eze, so both of them know me and they have my phone No.
“Above all my phone number is in the public domain so they should stop the lies,” he said.
He also faulted the meeting which was held at New Haven; outside Enugu West Senatorial zone and opined that the meeting could pass as “a private meeting conveyed by the Minister and not for stakeholders in the zone.”
In his reaction, Chief Eze said he expected the party’s secretary to reach out to members of the party inside the meeting hall for clarification if he was having such issues and maintained that they couldn’t have known that his number wasn’t correct as they weren’t involved in the collation of names and phone numbers of other invited persons.
“If the aim wasn’t to ferment trouble and dent the name of the Hon. Minister, the person would have quietly called even his party Chairman who was inside the venue or other leaders from Udi that were already seated. Others had a similar issue and it was duly sorted out without any fuss.”
Another person who was reportedly denied entry into the meeting from the zone and a State Chairmanship Aspirant, Hon. Chiedozie Nwafor said he was initially denied entry into the meeting but after clarification, he was allowed entry.
“The truth is that I was in the meeting from the beginning to the end
“However, there was initial protocol clearance that was observed before I was cleared.
“The meeting was purely on invitation, hence the need to rectify some incongruences in the Awgu list. That took few minutes to do,” Mr Nwafor said in response to our message.
