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Thursday, 3 April 2014

Party Members Plot to Scuttle APC Nationwide Congresses

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The plans by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to hold ward congresses nationwide on Saturday may be thwarted by a group within the party whose members are complaining about marginalisation and the unfair composition of the electoral panel to oversee the exercise.
The aggrieved members, who have links with the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), one of the legacy parties that formed APC, are not comfortable with the composition of the congress committees at the state, local government and ward levels.
THISDAY gathered that the disagreement over the plans for the congresses started at the last meeting of the party in Abuja when the issue caused a heated debate among the stakeholders.
It was learnt that the concern of those protesting against the arrangements for the congresses arises from the fact that it has been skewed to favour certain interest groups who are angling to control the party machinery ahead of the 2015 general election.
A source told THISDAY yesterday that the group had threatened
to go to court to obtain an order restraining the leadership of APC in various states from going ahead with the ward congresses.
The source said the group had also protested against the alleged bias and marginalisation of its members in the composition of the committees, accusing some party leaders of hijacking the process.
A top APC chief confirmed the plot to THISDAY, saying the party had uncovered plots by its members to obtain dubious court injunctions to scuttle the party’s upcoming nationwide congresses, which begin at the ward level on Saturday.
According to the party chief, “Some forces are piling up funds meant to bribe court judges to obtain fraudulent injunctions using frivolous basis, which they plan to serve the APC structures in different states by Friday evening or earlier, with the aim of causing bottlenecks and inflicting a crisis on the party in different states, particularly in Borno, Adamawa, Rivers, Kano and Gombe, among others.”
He said the APC leadership was aware that some of its members are working with some influential forces and had held several meetings in recent times, during which they agreed to join the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in their suit to give the Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, and other parts of the country the jurisdiction to grant them orders to halt the congresses on Saturday.
He added that those behind the plot were also planning to use state high courts in their bid to scuttle the party's congresses.
The party had fixed April 5 for ward congresses, April 12 for local government congresses, April 14 for appeals arising from the ward and local government congresses and April 16 for state congresses, while appeals arising from the state congresses are billed to hold on April 23.
According to the guidelines set out by the party for the congresses, the National Congress Supervisory Committee  (NCSC) is to appoint five persons to serve as members of the Ward Congress Committees, who will come from any part of the local government area other than the ward they would serve in.
However one of the major issues in contention was the composition of the NCSC approved by the party leadership to supervise the congresses.
Membership of the NCSC, which has the responsibility for the overall conduct of congresses at all levels, comprises the party's national chairman, national secretary, national organising secretary, national treasurer, two representatives of APC governors, two representatives of National Assembly members of the party, members of the National Membership Registration and Data Processing Committee and any other persons to be co-opted by the committee.

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