Edo APC chairman inaugurates membership mobilization committee

UNPERTURBED by the rumbling in the Edo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party during the weekend in Benin inaugurated a 39 member mobilisation committee for membership drive.

Chaired by the former Majority Leader of the Edo State House of Assembly, Mr. Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, the state party chairman, Mr Anselm Ojezua charged the committee to embark on serious membership drive.

Few months to the governorship primary and the election proper which comes up later in the year, the party is presently enmeshed in crisis as Col. David Imuse is equally laying claim to the chairmanship of the party in the state.

At the inauguration, Ojezua reeled out the terms of reference to the committee which among others included serious membership drive, to identify and interact with notable persons across the state who have shown genuine interest in joining the party.

He debunked insinuation that the party is being run like a secret cult, noting that “our party is not a secret society” and “everything we do is transparent and therefore this process is also transparent.”

The chairman also tasked the 39-member committee to develop a program of action to receive the comers at all levels of engagements from the ward to the state level.

He said: “Today, we are inaugurating one of the most important committees any political party would have because it has to do with mobilization which is synonymous with membership drive. And in doing this, we have carefully and in consultation with the leadership of the party identified people; men and women that we know have the capacity, the goodwill to get the job done. And that is why the responsibilities has fallen on those we have just called.

“You know as well as I do that quite a number of people have indicated interest to join our party; some for good and some for not so good.

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“Your work is to also use your means to do some level of screening and therefore make some recommendations that will be for the good of our party.

“We have set up this committee in the open and they will work from bottom-up because as they say politics is local.

“We do not accept that membership drive for Edo people to join a party in Edo should be done outside Edo by people of questionable status within our party and that is the reason why we say this one is different.”

The chairman noted that “there is a clear difference between membership drive and an invitation of a mercenary group to come and do a hostile take over of the party as if this structure that we have put in place is not a superstructure.”

He, however, said that by the time the commit successfully finishes its assignment, Nigerians will know APC in Edo is as strong as can ever be.

He added that “no sinister group, no matter how highly placed, can change the situation as far as Edo state is concerned.”

Iduoriyekemwen promised that the committee will ensure that people of good character who will lead the party to the next level are brought to the party.