Chairman Senate Committee on Finance, Senator John Owan Eno, has lamented efforts by some individuals within the ruling party All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River state, to hijack its structure, adding that last Saturday’s ward congress never took place in the state.
The Senator representing Cross Rivers Central, however, warned the APC national leadership to disregard any attempt by some persons to tell them the contrary.
Also, some protesters from Kaduna state were at the national secretariat of the party, saying the party was dying in the state.
Some of the placards carried by the protesters read: “Baba, please call Kiriku to order,” “APC is dying in Kaduna,” “EFCC, investigate Oyegun and return our money,” “EFCC should come to the aid of Kaduna people,” “democracy is about people and not committee of friends,” “say no to kiriku in 2019,” “Congress must hold in Kaduna,” “affirmation is undemocratic,” “Oyegun should go,” “no APC Ward congress in Kaduna, “we stand with Baba Buhari for 2019, among others.
Speaking at a news conference Monday in Abuja, Sen. Eno, who said the committee sent to his state had been compromised, asked the national secretariat to setup another congress panel which will conduct a credible, free and fair ward congresses in Cross River state.
According to him, when it was obvious that the ward congress could not hold on Saturday, all the stakeholders including him drove to the office of the Commissioner of Police in the state where they signed to keep the materials sent from the national secretariat with the police.
When asked what his next step if action will be, the lawmaker said: “It will be shameful that any list of delegates and elected people comes out of the last Saturday’s exercise in Cross Rivers when the result sheets and other materials from the national headquarters are in the safe custody of the Nigerian police, I don’t think it will happen but if it does happen I believe the entire stakeholders will meet to agree on the line of action.”
In his speech titled ‘shame of a congress committee panel,’ the lawmaker explained that: “When we expected that the congress panel had left Cross River yesterday (Sunday), we later got another story that the congresses were going on.
“Now there are lot of reports about the fact that they have tried to organised what they called congresses in the cause of yesterday and we are just wondering where they are getting the result or whatever, so those are the issues we need to prepare our minds for, that today or tomorrow if the result of congresses from Cross River comes to national secretariat, there will be a lot of pertinent questions they need to answer; where did they get result from? Where did they do the congresses? And so on.”