As the on-going elective congresses of the All Progressives Congress (APC) continue to generate tension across the states, a party chieftain, Senator Kabiru Marafa, yesterday declared that conspirators within the party are causing disaffection within the party ahead of the 2019 general elections. Marafa (APC, Zamfara Central), who made the allegation at a media briefing in Abuja, specifically said the alleged conspirators were sabotaging the elective congresses of the party in most states of the federation.
According to him, they were weakening the platform for President Muhammdu Buhari and other loyal party members aspiring for one position or the other in the forthcoming general elections. Using his state as a case study, the senator said both the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party in Abuja, and the Zamfara state Governor, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, deliberately sabotaged the process by not following party guidelines in conducting the ward and local government congresses that took place so far.
According to him, neither the electoral panel team sent from Abuja to conduct the election nor the governor of the state did the right thing. By their action (governor, NWC and the committee), party loyalists were forced to organise separate congresses, based on party guidelines across the states.
He said: “For me, after looking at the whole congresses, the way it started, you know what the party did and everything, to me, there is massive conspiracy against the party and against the leader of the party that is the president of the country. “If you look at the first scenario, some people just came up with the idea of one-year extension for the members of NWC, the president was advised that that extension was illegal and it will portend serious problem to the success of the party. The president put his feet down and said we should go for elective congresses or consensus where possible.
“The party came up with guidelines on how these congresses should be conducted, but the same party that produces these guidelines; they were the first people that broke the rules. “In one of the clauses in the guidelines, they said forms should be filled and returned within 24 hours. But the NWC of APC didn’t even meet the committees until Thursday evening.
“The committees started going to their stations on Friday. They said, if you are desirous of contesting, pay your monies into specified accounts totalling seven in number, upon which you collect forms and return it 24 hours before election.
“Now two things they did, they didn’t give the committees the forms to go to the state. Two, there was no clear 24 hours to collect the form, fill it and return it. The whole thing, it was a kind of sabotage which made the whole thing rancorous, that there will be parallel congresses, and a set of executive will be established for each state, the whole thing comes to just one thing, sabotage
