Barely two months to the conduct of the scheduled Local Government elections in Benue State, the crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) has deepened with the two factions of the party disagreeing on the constitution of committees for the polls.
The party is currently undergoing factional imbroglio with one claiming loyalty to Governor Alia and the other cueing behind the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume.
The party also has two separate chairmen with executive committee members and secretariats respectively performing different functions but claiming loyalty to the National Secretariat.
The Chairman of Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC), Dr John Chen, had announced June 6 as the date for the conduct of the council, but soon after that was done, the crisis erupted in the party again following the announcement of zoning committees for the election across the three senatorial districts of the state by the Senator Akume-led faction which was yesterday countered by the Governor's faction.
According to the chairman of the party, Comrade Austin Agada in a statement by the faction's Publicity Secretary of the SGF's side, Mr Daniel Ihomun, the 21-member committee would be inaugurated tomorrow, April 19 at its secretariat.
It urged local government party chairmen and ward chairmen to liaise with their respective party exco and stakeholders to perfect the zoning arrangement for the chairmanship and councillorship positions at the local government and ward levels to ease the committee's assignment.
But in a swift objection, the Governor's factional chairman,
Hon. Benjamin Omakolo urged members of the public not to take the purported list of the committees seriously as “no committee of any kind has been formed by the SEC of the APC which he is the chairman”.
He called on all party members and the general public to disregard any release not endorsed by him or the state publicity secretary of the party, Hon. Terseer Agber.
“The SEC of the All Progressives Congress would ordinarily have ignored such baseless shenanigans by a rejected and disgruntled group of party members, but for the fact that silence would most likely mislead our teeming members and supporters within and beyond the state.
Omakolo, in a statement by factional state publicity secretary, Hon. Terseer Agber,
wondered how a non-existing state executive council could sit at Abuja and constitute an elections zoning committee for Benue state”.
He called on all party faithful to remain calm and wait for the time the SEC of the party led by him would constitute the committee for the zoning of elective positions.
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