AMIDST confusion over the fate of the national secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) caretaker/extraordinary convention planning committee, Senator John Akpanudoedehe, Yobe State governor and chairman of the APC CECPC, Mai Mala Buni, on Thursday, said all decisions taken in his absence remain valid. Governor Buni returned to the country on Wednesday night from his medical trip abroad and took over the leadership of the party on Thursday.
In a release by his Director-General, Press and Media Affairs, Alhaji Mamman Mohammed, on Thursday, Buni appealed to all party members to remain calm and law-abiding.
“Put the recent events in the party behind you and work towards a successful convention. As we head towards the convention, the party needs the support of every stakeholder and member to succeed.
“As democrats and committed party members, we should avoid issues that are capable of diverting our attention from the path of success,” he said. He expressed gratitude to President Muhammadu Buhari for the amicable resolution of recent misunderstanding in the party and added that all actions taken by the APC CECPC under Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State, who acted in his capacity, remained valid and binding.
“I duly transmitted power to the Niger state governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, therefore, all actions and measures taken by the committee under his leadership as acting chairman remain valid and binding,” he said.
Governor Buni also gave tacit approval to the sack of Akpanudoedehe as national secretary.
His letter, entitled, ‘Refutal’, read in part: “This is to bring to the notice of all stakeholders and members of the party that the purported suspension of some activities initiated and executed by the caretaker extraordinary convention planning committee under the acting chairman and Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, is not true.
“Therefore, all activities done in my absence remain valid and binding. All party stakeholders and members are hereby advised to disregard the previous statement discarding the activities of the committee under the leadership of the acting chairman.
“It could be recalled that I had duly transmitted power to His Excellency, the Niger State governor, Sani Bello, to enable me undergo medical attention. Therefore, all actions and measures taken by the committee under his leadership as acting chairman remain effective. “The party calls for support and understanding to move the party forward to a successful convention slated for March 26, 2022.”
Both Buni and Bello later held a crucial meeting at the Yobe Governor’s Lodge at Asokoro, Abuja, with some members of the CECPC in attendance.
The embattled national secretary of the CECPC, Akpanudoedehe, was absent. Speaking with newsmen at the end of the meeting, Governor Buni said the focus was on preparations towards the convention. He assured the party faithful that the March 26 date would not be aborted.
He said: “You know that since I travelled, the party has not stopped. His Excellency has done very well in managing the affairs of the party. We are here to discuss the issues going forward. We are now at the finishing line in the preparations for our convention which is at hand on March 26. We are putting heads together to achieve this task ahead. I want to emphasise that the March 26 convention is sacrosanct.”
On Akpanudoedehe’s absence at the meeting, he said: “You know that this is not a formal meeting of the committee.
These members of the CECPC just came to welcome me back to the country and wish me well after returning from a medical trip outside the country. So, it is not a formal meeting that one will ask whether the secretary is here or not. However, he was in the house earlier today.”
Also speaking, Governor Sani Bello said his team made progress to ensure a seamless convention while Governor Buni was outside the country.
“For the past one week, I have been acting as the chairman of CECPC and what I can tell you is that we made lots of progress towards our convention, like we saw in the inauguration of the state chairmen, adopted some of the zoning formula and some of the decisions of the CECPC taken before he left the country. I can tell you for free that in the last one week, we have ensured that we are good to go for convention.”
Ten members of the caretaker team had met at Niger State Governor’s Lodge before proceeding to meet with Governor Buni.
Two members of the media committee for the convention, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and Nasarawa State governor, Abdullahi Sule, later came to Yobe Governor’s Lodge to meet with members of the CECPC.
Before the meeting with Buni, a memo removing Akpanudoedehe as secretary of the CECPC had been released to newsmen.
It was signed by Governor Sani Bello and nine other members of the caretaker committee.
The memo was dated March 8, 2022 and was released following a statement signed and released on Wednesday night by Senator Akpanudoede, announcing the cancellation of Thursday’s meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC).
The national secretary in the statement said he was acting on the instruction of Governor Buni.
The Governor Sani Bello camp was also enraged over the new list of sub-committees for the March 26 convention, asking party faithful to disregard the earlier list of committees in public domain, released by the Niger State governor. A member of the APC CECPC and new spokesman of the party, Ismaeel Ahmed, insisted that Senator Akpanudoedehe had been relieved of his position.
Asked for his comments on the new list of sub-committees, Ahmed claimed that the “CECPC never approved the list and, in fact, has no record of such list,” as he asked media and party members to ignore it.
He maintained “that the approved final list was the outcome of extensive consultations with all the stakeholders and follow-up at ensuring that a decent list that is representative and inclusive is put together and the same has since been issued.”
Deputy national publicity secretary of the party, Yekeen Nabena, however, dismissed the sack of Akpanudoedehe, describing it as a contravention of the party constitution. He insisted that only the NEC of the party could remove the national secretary.
“They don’t have the power to remove the secretary. What they need is two-thirds of NEC; I mean, NEC members not appointed members. The governors are elected, so they are members of NEC, the president is a member of NEC. So, whatsoever they are doing, they don’t have the power, because they failed to read their constitution