Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

APC in the throes of crises

By Isa Abdulsalami Ahovi (Jos), Hendrix Oliomogbe (Asaba) and Auwal Ahmed (Gombe)
10 February 2017   |   2:31 am
As the national body of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) continues to grapple with internal crises since it took over government at the centre in 2015...

APC

Plateau, Delta, Gombe state chapters in trouble
As the national body of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) continues to grapple with internal crises since it took over government at the centre in 2015, many of the state chapters of the party are not exempted from local disputes that are pitting their members against one another.

In Plateau State, the party has refuted allegations that the chapter chairman, Mr. Latep Dabang has hijacked and personalised its affairs and running it as though it were his estate.

In a statement yesterday, Secretary of the party, Alhaji Bashir Sati Musa said the purported letter in circulation claiming to have emanated from some members of the state’s executive was a figment of their imagination.

In the letter, the state chairman was accused of “hijacking the party machineries, insincerity in appointments, personalisation of the party and unaccountability of party funds.”

However, the party dismissed the allegations, saying: “We want to make it clear that this is a spurious and unsubstantiated allegations and a figment of imagination of some elements who want to destabilise the party for their selfish ends.”

Although, the party admitted there were similar allegations last year by some aggrieved members, “the matter had since been resolved, said the party.

According to the party, “The matter then was thoroughly investigated, deliberated upon and later found out that there was no iota of truth in the allegations and it was therefore laid to rest.

“But to the surprise of the party, some misguided elements last week dusted the old petition and presented it as a fresh fact to malign the state chairman, deceive party faithful and also to give impression that the party in Plateau State is in crisis,” the statement added.

The feuding crisis in the Delta State branch of party took a turn for the worse recently as the chairmen and secretaries across the nine local councils of Delta North Senatorial district suspended the senatorial chairman, Mr. George Okafor over alleged misappropriation of Christmas rice and anti-party activities.

In a letter dated February 6, 2017 and addressed to the state chairman of the party, the aggrieved chairmen and secretaries pointedly accused Okafor of gross misappropriation of the Christmas rice package as well as allegedly collecting the sum of N10, 000 each from the councils as transportation cost for the rice.

The letter, which was jointly signed by eight out of the nine chairmen and six out of the nine secretaries of the councils’ executives asserted that Okafor short-changed them by holding on to the four bags of rice each, while also allegedly collecting N10, 000.00 each from the councils for the purpose of transporting the bags of rice.

The chairman of the party in Oshimili South local council, Ogbueshi Ben Onwuka who read the suspension letter at the end of a stakeholders’ meeting in Asaba claimed that Okafor was not fit to continue to pilot the affairs of the party in Delta North.

Okafor however refuted the allegations.

In Gombe State, hoodlums were said to have attacked the state’s Caretaker Committee chairman, Capt. Bala Jibrin during a stakeholders meeting where he was delivering a lecture.

Meanwhile, the embattled chairman alleged that Senator Mohammed Goje sponsored the attack.

The bickering has to do with the forthcoming local government elections in the state, which had already pitted the party’s leadership against one another.

According to Jibrin, “I was assigned by the national body of the APC to ensure that meeting was properly held and report back to it but it appears some cabals do not want that to happen for whatever interest.

However, Goje has since denied the allegations, saying the perpetrators of the act must have acted on their own.

Goje, who spoke through one of his former commissioners said, “The thugs might have acted on their own because they were not also satisfied with the current leadership of the party.

0 Comments