By Felix Izu

Prior to the Expanded Caucus Meeting organized by the Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E Geoffrey Onyeama through Dr. Ben Nwoye to foster peace between the factions in the All progressives Congress (APC) Enugu State chapter, Dr. Ben Nwoye was one of the factional Chairmen of the party. However, after the meeting at De Dome Event Center Enugu chaired by the H.E Geoffrey Onyeama, the party leaders resolved that the State Executive Committees of both factions be dissolved and that a Caretaker Committee be set up pending the party congress nationwide.

Fortune found its way to the former chairman as he was few days after the event appointed as a commissioner in the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission by H.E President Muhammadu Buhari. Although, as at the time of this report, Dr. Nwonye, has not accepted the appointment neither has he responded to the congratulatory messages flowing to him on social media, but it is likely that he will accept the ‘retirement grant’.

I personally congratulate Dr. Nwoye on this appointment. And I will also like to point out to him the tasks ahead of him. The Commission into which he was appointed was established by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCPA) 2018 to, among others, develop and promote fair, efficient and competitive markets in the Nigerian economy, facilitate access by all citizens to safe products, and secure the protection of rights for all consumers in Nigeria. How many of the following core values of the commission does he have: competence, responsiveness, ethics, sensitivity, transparency, stability, having been unable to win any election from 2014 to 30th September 2020 when he was appointed?

Undoubtedly, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who have been been the most beneficiary of the crisis within the APC is the chief sponsor of the feud. Some APC members championing the crisis including Dr. Nwoye are widely alleged to be in the payroll of the PDP led state government. In other word, the existence of factions in APC had been a source of income to many. Now that the crisis has been resolved by the party leaders and the State Executive Committee dissolved, one could accurately infer that his appointment is a financial compensation for the lost ‘job’, with the mischief makers.

Why he has not yet accepted the appointment has generated different views from the observing populace. There are insinuations that he received the news of his appointment with mixed feelings as the commission was recently established (in 2018) and is yet to entrench itself in the Nigerian system. Some school of thoughts have it that the appointment is a mere political retirement into oblivion, that if Dr. Nwoye had been appointed into NNPC Board, it would have been viewed as a political elevation.

But I have a different view to these. I believe that Dr. Ben Nwoye might been considering how he will manage to scale through the DSS clearance in view of various publications about his alleged removal from the legal practice on grounds of fraud by a quasi judicial body. But all in all it is a breath of fresh air for APC Enugu in preparatory to 2023.