NEC forum writes Buhari over APC crisis

MEMBERS of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who are not comfortable with the leadership style of the party chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, have petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari.

Tribune Online gathered that the party chieftains, under the aegis of forum of All Progressives National Executive Council (NEC), expressed displeasure over what they claimed to be an orchestrated plot of the Odigie-Oyegun National Working Committee (NWC) to sideline a superior statutory organ of the party, the NEC, in the running of the party affairs.

In the letter dated April 6, entitled: “Save our party-APC”,  signed  by a national ex-officio, South-West coordinator, Honourable  Omolayo O Akintola, the forum expressed regret over the leadership style  of the party’s national chairman, which they claimed could  lead to “preventable, avoidable and unnecessary intra-party cracks that the present situation might generate.”

A copy of the letter made available to newsmen at the weekend read in part: “We strongly feel that an urgent call on the appropriate quarters of the party be made to ensure that NEC meeting of our party as provided by Article 25 of our party constitution is obeyed to guarantee resolution of matters affecting party amicably.

“We are equally greatly displeased with the ways of handling party matters solely by the NWC, without any recourse to the NEC from which NWC derived its powers.

“Also to be noted for appropriate advice is the exclusion of sizeable number of federating states from scheme of things within the party because many states are not presently represented by party officers on the current NWC, hence, the need to be having regular NEC meetings pending the much awaited amendment to the present party constitution.”

Tribune Online gathered that the APC Governors’ Forum, at its last meeting with the NWC, expressed reservations that the NWC failed to consult the NEC of the party before making a formal pronouncement on the midterm convention fixed for this month.

The governors, led to the meeting by the Imo State governor and chairman of the forum, Rochas Okorocha, accused the former Edo State governor of subverting the party’s constitution by his alleged unilateral pronouncement on a sensitive matter as the national convention of the party without making a recourse to its NEC.

Further checks by Tribune Online, however, revealed that the NEC meeting of the party would be convened a week after the Easter period.

A party source, who pleaded not to be named, told the Tribune Online that “the meeting has been fixed for Wednesday, April, 12, but has to be postponed till after Easter.”