Fresh leadership crisis looms in APC

The All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to be courting fresh crisis as five deputy national officers are raising allegations bordering on injustice and marginalisation.

Daily Sun learnt that the aggrieved officials are peeved that they were excluded from the mainstream fold of the National Working Committee (NWC) since the current leadership was constituted and inaugurated.

The five deputies who have reportedly lodged complaints about their illtreatment to the NWC are Bolaji Alabi Edu, deputy national legal adviser; Omorede Osifo-Marshall, deputy national treasurer; Jamalu Kabir, deputy national youth leader; Olufemi Akpedeyi, deputy national auditor, and Christopher Akpan, deputy national welfare secretary.

Part of their complaints is that while the national leadership has rebuffed entreaties to include them in the NWC, other five deputies, comprising the Deputy National Secretary, Festus Fuanter, Deputy National Financial Secretary, Hamma-Adama Ali Kumo, Deputy National Organizing Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yakubu Murtala Ajaka, and Deputy National Women Leader, Zainab Abubakar Ibrahim, were incorporated.

However, dismissing their claim of injustice as baseless, a member of the NWC said their exclusion was a constitutional issue, explaining that the deputies included in the NWC were products of a motion moved and endorsed during the party’s last elective convention in Abuja.

While advising the aggrieved officials to follow constitutional method to perfect their inclusion, the national officer said: “This issue has been on the front burner since our inauguration. They have taken their complaints to the national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu and to several other places, but they have been advised to follow constitutional option to redress their exclusion. If they are so passionate about it, where were they when they moved the motion at the national convention ground to include themselves in the amendment?”

Citing Section 12.4 of the certified true copy of the party’s constitution that specified the composition of the NWC, the member of the national leadership insisted that the numerical strength of leadership currently stood at 25.

He listed them as the national chairman, two deputy national chairmen from North and South, national secretary, his deputy, six national vice, referred to zonal chairmen, national legal adviser, national welfare, national treasurer, financial secretary, national organising and deputy, national publicity secretary and deputy, national women leader and deputy, national youth leader among others.

The aggrieved deputies have also complained that they were sidelined when the national officers, including the deputies, got N50 million each as housing allowance.

They also claim that brand new Lexus 570 jeeps or equivalent were given to all NWC members excluding them, adding that during the last struggle for control of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council, the NWC only included their members in the PCC and excluded the other five national deputies.

But, dismissing the claims of bazaar honorarium, an NWC member said there was no iota of truth in it, insisting that those that got car gifts did from their state governors or zones.

“I am a member of the NWC, but I have not changed any car. If I were the aggrieved deputies, I will expose all the fraudulent actions perpetrated by the national leadership. But, like I said, they should explore constitutional option,” he said.

Notwithstanding the explanations regarding the appointment of party officials for electioneering, a source sympathetic to the excluded five said party chieftain’s should be aware that certain toes are not trampled on in order to ensure and maintain smooth campaign operation of the party, admonishing that “everyone has their relevance and should be carried along.”