From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee has reiterated its resolve not to recognise any executive that emerged from any parallel congresses.
APC Ward and Local Government Congresses from states like Enugu, Osun, Delta, Kwara, Lagos, Abia among others, have all been replete with crises and parallel exercise.
Reacting to the development, the National Secretary, APC Caretaker Committee, Sen John James Akpanudoedehe, urged them to explore the internal resolution mechanism to address their grievances.
‘I don’t know why you are reporting what is not available as far as APC is concerned we are very structured, we put up a committee and the committee has gone out to conduct the congresses.
‘The next step will be an appeal and anyone with the issue will go to the appeal and if you are not satisfied with the appeal the caretaker committee will handle it. That is our structure,’ he said.
He also revealed that the national leadership of the party has started compiling names of members that have instituted legal action against the party.
‘We are already compiling the list of all the cases and you are very conversant with the party constitution. We will inform the National Executive Committee (NEC) and a decision will be taken by NEC.
‘We will gather the whole thing together then we will approach NEC for a decision. But do we stand by what the NEC said? The decision of the NEC is yes,’ he said.
On aggrieved party members not trusting the internal mechanism, he said: ‘This is party politics. It is a family affair. If you check many of the reports people can complain about the pages of the newspaper but to approach the Appeal Panel there is no substantive channel of some evidence to warrant the expectation of what you are talking about.
‘People are used to giving words to individuals but we have a clear mandate of Mr. President that the party should be given to the grass root.
‘The constitution of this party allows consensus so you go to your ward and do consensus when you are not happy sometimes not everything would go your way.
‘There can be complaints everywhere. Don’t forget the last statement that we issued. There is a window of opportunity when people are not satisfied. The caretaker committee is still open,’ he assured.