Northern Politician Reveals Problem Within APC
A northern politician who was instrumental to the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed the real reason for the rancor in the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC).
Alhaji Adamu Yaro Potiskum who spoke with Leadership newspaper recently said APC is bedevilled by lack of good leadership translating in the complete and total asphyxiation of internal party democracy.
“As it is now, APC is bedevilled by lack of good leadership translating in the complete and total asphyxiation of internal party democracy. Without the fear of contradiction and I stand to be corrected, the present state acting chairman of our party is a card carrying member of PDP and up till now, he has not officially decamped into the fold of APC, likewise the incumbent secretary of the party.
“These people were brought to make our supporters embrace PDP during the presidential elections so that Buhari could lose the election. After the phenomenal victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, these forces are now fighting us the true Buhari supporters for our indefatigable and unflinching support to Buhari’s victory,” he said.
The politician who was recently suspended from the party said his suspension was illegal as it did not follow laid down procedures of punishing errant member of the party.
“Let me be very categorical here, APC is a political party which was set on the tenets of rule of law, justice and fair play. It is not a tyrannical contraption in which the tyrant does as he wishes. APC has rules and regulations governing its operations. There are laid down procedures of punishing any errant member of the party whenever he circumvents the laid down rules. All these rules and procedures were violated with impunity in the build up to our illegal suspension.
“When the party chairman was asked the rationale behind our suspension by concerned members, he only alluded that it was at the behest of the executive governor. But one thing the acting chairman seems to have missed in the sordid drama is that the governor has no right whatsoever to use executive fiat to suspend any member of the party because the party is an independent entity and not a personal property of the governor. So the governor has no right to order the suspension of anybody.
“We the executive of Potiskum local government was duly and constitutionally elected and we will never succumb to illegal suspension. We have written a petition about the impudence but they failed to respond. We therefore extended the complaint to the zonal vice chairman informing him about the ugly development. The acting chairman became jittery of our actions and they now turned back and suspended only 11 of us for 18 months and one sad issue is that all the suspended members are politically more relevant than the acting chairman.”
He advised the all stakeholders in the party to be law abiding.
“I want a situation where the governor sticks to his executive functions and stops dabbling into affairs. Nobody will complain about who the governor appoints and those he decides to award contracts to but the party should be allowed to have breathing space. Another issue that must be addressed is that some of the unpopular decisions taken by those powerful persons, especially imposition of unpopular leaders, must be reversed, this is what in the first place led to the death of the PDP and we can only repeat the same mistake at our own peril.”
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