Certain leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State are set for a showdown with the national secretariat of the party over its plan to proceed with the conduct of state congress fixed for Saturday.
At a meeting held last week, the party chieftains cautioned the APC national secretariat to drop the idea of a State Congress in the South-South state as they noted that both the ward and State Congresses earlier conducted were marred with irregularities.
At the meeting were Minister of Labour and Chairman, Delta APC Leaders’ Council; Festus Keyamo, SAN; his deputy,
Dr Alex Ideh; Secretary of the Council, Honourable Cairo Ojougboh; APC governorship candidate, Delta State; Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru; former Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly, Honourable Victor Ochei and fourteen others.
The party chieftains recalled that they had earlier formally informed Governor Mai Mala Buni led Caretaker Committee of their disaffection with the manner the congresses were handled but their petition was rebuffed.
They further demanded a fresh ward and local government congresses as a condition precedent for State Congress expected to hold on Saturday across state chapters in the country.
They equally rejected the composition of the Appeal Committees set up by the national Secretariat, accusing it of pushing the agenda of a certain principal officer of the senate.
“We state and affirm here that there was no acceptable congress in Delta APC. We have previously heard through the grapevine that the entire State structure would be taken by an agent of the CECPC and that we can complain to the CECPC or go to court. The reasons for such grandstanding and boastfulness are now clear for all to see. The CECPC may have been misled but we believe that justice will eventually prevail and they cannot befuddle the people of Delta State. Delta State APC is not the personal property of one person, and it will never be. Let all be reminded that the foundation and fulcrum of our Party were laid and built on integrity and progressive politics, epitomised by President Buhari.
“The CECPC cannot divorce itself from these tenets of democracy.
“Accordingly, we call on the CECPC to annul whatever he or the CECPC may be regarding as Ward and LGA congresses in Delta State and organise fresh, all-inclusive Congresses. This is the irreducible minimum for the teeming members of our Party to work with the CECPC to take our party forward.”
On the zoning of party offices in Delta state, the party chieftains led by Festus Keyamo (SAN) alleged that what was being bandied was not a product of consensus and was not acceptable to a majority of APC stakeholders in Delta State.
“Zoning has become an acceptable political imperative buoyed by the letters of Nigeria’s constitution and the spirit of our party’s constitution. However, zoning must be based on a clear understanding of the polity and firm endorsement of the relevant party leadership. It is the height of arbitrariness and didactic arrogance for one person, in connivance with the suspended Acting State Party Chairman, to the exclusion of the Executives and leaders of the Party, to claim to have zoned the Party positions for the whole state, ahead of the State Congress. Expectedly, this was outrightly and overwhelmingly rejected.”
“To carry the insult further, the same person, in acknowledgement of the perversive rejection of his vexatious proposal, subsequently claimed to have personally set up a committee to review his own obnoxious proposal. This clique of personal loyalists and errand boys he calls a Review Committee is only meant to perfect his premeditated agendum of foisting a leadership on the State. We reject all these in their entirety.”