By Paul Mumeh
Snr Correspondent, Abuja

He said in a protest letter to the National Executive Committee (NEC), sent through Ali, that the Anenih committee on the Anambra conflict condemned him and seven members of his National Working Committee (NWC) without hearing him out.

“Whether I was personally accused or not”, he stressed, “I do hold vicarious responsibility for the operations of the party and cannot therefore pretend not to be affected by these grave conclusions”.

The panel’s report found the NWC culpable and recommended its dissolution.

Ogbeh argued: “The failure to give me a chance to appear suggests an increasingly worrisome development in our party, a blatant disregard for legal norms, and a steady widening of the highway to judicial anarchy. Recent pronouncements by some of you, members of this body, suggest no less and this is at a time when we seek world respect; we, the ruling party.

“I wish to ask some of you, members of this body, how you would react if, some day after leaving office, you are accused, tried and condemned in your absence. It may be sweet now because I and my NWC are at this end of the barrel, but this is evil and evil always crashes under its own weight”.

Ogbeh denied embezzling N2.9 billion, saying all he spent and did was approved as shown in the audited account by external auditors of Akintola Williams and Company.

He frowned at Ali’s explanation of why the party did not take him and his leadership to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

“The sole purpose of the Anenih inquiry was to establish guilt and prepare grounds for the final takeover of the party”.

But Ali told Ogbeh on Wednesday that “I have nothing against you”.

He explained in his reaction to the letter that Ogbeh was not invited to the panel “because there was nowhere he was directly accused of financial impropriety”.

Ali issued a statement that was signed on his behalf by his Media Assistant, Theophilus Abbah.

He stated that the people invited by the panel were those who had explanations to offer on the mismanagement of party funds and described as unfair, Ogbeh’s position that the changes in the leadership of the PDP were an attempt to hijack the November convention and take over the party.