Peace Returns To ASA-USA After 4 Days Intervention By Governor Willie Obiano Delegates

The chaos in Anambra  state Associations in the Unites States of America (ASA-USA) has been laid to rest . This is following the intervention of Governor Willie Obiano who formed a 14 man delegation led by SSG Obaze Oseloka to the USA to mediate and restore peace. Today peace has been restored in ASA-USA. This is the insider story as told by Obaze-------

A long marathon reconciliation secession that commenced on Friday 15 October evening and ended at 6:30 am Sunday 19 October 2014, has ended the protracted leadership rift within ASA-USA, a community-based organization in the United States. 

The leadership peace accord, which coincided with the ASA-USA 2014 Convention in Newark, NJ, and the end on the tenure of the Dr. Allison Anadi-led Executive Committee, was brokered by a nine-man Anambra State Government Reconciliation Team despatched by Gov. Willie Obiano, with the mandate to end the seemingly intractable rift.  The reconciliation team was led by SSG Oseloka H. Obaze. 

ASA-USA has been embroiled in a very divisive leadership crisis since June of 2012 over the running of the affairs and finances of the association. The crisis had led to litigation from a suit was filed in December 2013 by the chairman of the Board of ASA-USA, Dr. Pius Okafor against the President, Dr. Allison Anadi and some of his executives.  Efforts by former Gov. Peter Obi and other intermediaries to resolve the conflict in 2013 had failed. 

The New Jersey peace negotiation marked the first time in several years the protagonists would meet under the same roof.  The ANSG  negotiation team which included HRH Dr. Emeka Iluno, Elder Chris Eluemuno,  Peter Nwagu the President General of Onitsha, Chief Ifeanyi Udokwu, Deputy State Chairman of APGA, Chief D.A. Okeke Ogene, Chairmen of Njikoka and Awka South LGA Councils, as well as four Senior Special Assistants to Governor Willie Obiano -- Cyril Agupugo, Benji Obi, Primus Odili and Francis Asokwu Sea -- held bilateral talks with the factions at different venues before meeting with them jointly. 

SSG Obaze, who led the negotiations said,  "The negotiation process was very intense, at times visceral, heated, but nonetheless focussed and constructive. At certain points, and indeed till the end, a positive outcome seemed exceedingly doubtful."

Nevertheless, the outcome document, a 7-point Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) singed by Dr. Anadi and Dr. Okafor and witnessed by three persons, Attorney Chuks Ezewuzie, Mr. Antony Adubason and Hon. Oseloka Obaze, was only possible at about 6:30am on Sunday morning after most ASA-USA convention delegates and some members of the negotiation team on both sides had given up and gone to bed. 

The MOU, inter alia, postponed the ASA-USA elections for 2014, for 12 months; set up a 14-man Interim Management Board (IMB) drawn from 14 local chapter affiliates, with a 12 month tenure; charged the IMB to harmonize the 2002, 2007, and 2013 governing documents and bring them into conformity with the California Public Benefit Corporation Law, and barred members of the IMB from running in the 2015 ASA-USA elections. The IMB as constituted, was charged with holding its first meeting within 15 days of the signing of the MOU.

The clincher of the MOU was set out in the operative paragraph 4, by which amongst other things, Dr. Anadi and Dr Okafor agreed not to be members of the IMB and to resolve all pending litigation issues between them and others and issues relating to their resoective legal fees.  

Various members of the New Jersey Chapter ASA-USA, who felt that the peace negotiation process had visibly taken away the shine from their role as the host of the 2014 ASA USA, said they were elated and relived that in the end, New Jersey saved ASA-USA, when efforts at Chicago, New Orleans and other places failed.