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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged aggrieved party members complaining on the outcome of the party’s ward congresses to explore the option of the Appeal Committee to be inaugurated next week.
National Secretary APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Sen John James Akpanudoedehe, who made the appeal in Abuja on Tuesday while speaking on a television programme equally warned that the national leadership will not recognise any faction.
He argued that the whole controversy trailing the legality of conduct of the Congress and the Supreme Court judgment is hinged on politics of 2023 general elections from selfish politicians.
On membership registration, he said: “We must appreciate the fact that it never happened in the past. The APC, led by the chairman, Governor Mai Mala Buni is focused on delivering in its mandate.
“We came to the consciousness of the need to take the party to the grassroots where it belongs in the form of bottom up approach. For the first time in the history of Nigeria and everywhere in the world that you have registration of party members taken to the polling units.
“The polling units registration is an exercise that threatened the opposition. Some people might think otherwise because people are used to sitting at home as leaders of the party to write names.
For your information, the voting at the Congress was monitored by INEC across the country. The commission also have the results generated at the election,” he said.
On whether the build up two days to the Congress slowed down the exercise, he said: “We didn’t receive report on factions because we are not dealing with that. We had published the decision of NEC warning that we will not tolerate the factionalisation of the party. We urged everybody to follow the communication channels of doing things and it was the committees that we sent to the states that we empowered to conduct the congresses.
“As for the build up to the Congress, if we have judgement from the Supreme Court telling us not to conduct congresses, it would have been a different thing. It is not the armchair interpretation or lawyers quoting whatever they are quoting, because they are not comfortable with what we are doing.
“Most of these lawyers talking today are part of the legal team that looked at the constitution in the comfortability of setting up the Caretaker Committee and they came up with results. In politics, we must understand that interest. The 2023 is around the corner and all the jabs are as a result of interest. We don’t want the public to be misguided by the politicians.
“What it means is that the politics of 2023 has started and that’s why people are interpretting the Supreme Court ruling to their favour. is there any part of that judgement that said anything not our favour. That’s why we should not allow politicians to move us around.
On making case for the aggrieved factions, he said: “Of course, that is why we have an Appeal Committee as the right thing to do. If anyone is dissatisfied with the outcome the result, wait for the committee we are setting up next week. They will recommend whether to conduct fresh congresses in those areas not for the aggrieved to flaunt the decision of NEC. We will not tolerate that.”
