BENUE APC G.5 Aspirants Address World Press Conference."PLEASE, DO NOTIMPOSE A GOVERNORSHIP CANDIDATE ON US".Please Click To Read The FullDetails.

BEING THE TEXT OF A WORLD PRESS CONFERENCE ADDRESSED BY THE FORUM OF BENUE APC GOVERNORSHIP ASPIRANTS (AKA THE G.5) IN ABUJA DURING WHICH THEY JOINTLY, UNEQUIVOCALLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY REJECTED, IN TOTALITY, THE ATTEMPTS BY THE LEADERSHIP OF THE APC (BOTH AT THE STATE   AND 

NATIONAL LEVEL) TO IMPOSE A PDP CHIEFTAIN ON BENUE PEOPLE AS THE APC CONSENSUS GOVERNORSHIP CANDIDATE…THIS 17TH  DAY OF DECEMBER, 2014.read more.

 Distinguished gentlemen of the press, we welcome you all. It is with heavy hearts and a deep sense of responsibility that we address you this afternoon. 

Our hearts are heavy because the bizarre and absurd things going on in our party, the APC, back home in Benue State, are giving new meanings to the word: impunity. 

We are also ashamed because after advertising ourselves as a progressive party, intent on giving Nigerians an authentic and viable democratic alternative – as opposed to the ruling PDP, better known for its arrogance, rough tactics and undemocratic tendencies – we are here today, kicking against the very things that the PDP exemplifies. 

In other words, all is not well with the Benue state chapter of the APC. As an opposition party, we are becoming more notorious for impositions. Under the supervision of the state leadership, the Benue APC hasconstricted from a democracy into an autocracy; from a political party into an impossibly arrogant, one-man show! It is not surprising, therefore, that many APC heavy-weights have left the party for other parties, especially the PDP from where they came out! These include:former Senate President, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu;  two-time Senator, Prof. Daniel Saror; Former Speaker, Benue State House of Assembly and later member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Mzenda Ihyo; world-class Management Consultant and political strategist, Prof. David Iornem; ACN deputy governorship candidate in the 2011 governorship election, Alh. Abubakar Usman; one of Nigeria’s foremost diplomats, Amb. Mike Gbasha; former  Military Governors of Katsina State, Gen. Lawrence Onoja and Sen. Joseph Akaagerger as well as member of the House of Representatives, Col. Aboho (rtd.). 

However, this has not deterred the State APC Leadership from its elected path of habitual arbitrariness and gross impunity. The leadership can arbitrary disqualify governorship aspirants, re-schedule Governorship Primaries outside the released schedule of our party’s National Secretariat, violate party guidelines on Delegates’ List, the venue-cum-modalities of primaries as well as flout court orders without qualms. 

The latest act of gross impunity from the party is the desperate attempt to turn the State APC intoa dumping ground or rehabilitation centre for failed PDP politicians. In Benue state today, the APC is pejoratively called the New PDP! This is what is threatening to pull the party down. The irony is that the more people protest, the more the State APC Leadership is emboldened in itsdemocratic aberrations, due process breaches and disregard for constitutional procedure. 

The case of a certain PDP chieftain, who has now become the Consensus Governorship Candidate of Benue APC is the reason we address this World Press Conference. Until the day (Wednesday 10th December, 2014) that we heard a self-sponsored radio announcement to the effect that a PDP Chieftain was the APC Consensus Governorship Candidate, we did not know that he had joined the APC after failing woefully in the PDP Primaries a few days’ earlier! And until we heard that our State Chairman planned to forward his name, this past weekend, to the National Secretariat and INEC, we did not believe that this “candidate” had even joined the Benue guber-race on the platform of the APC, least of all; becoming our “Consensus Candidate!” Consensus is the outcome of a meeting or a series of meetings. 

Yet, at no time did we meet with this “Consensus Candidate” or even met to discuss the issue. What is surprising is that the National Secretariat of our party too has bought into these undemocratic schemes of the Benue APC leadership.  Long after the guber-aspirants were screened in Ilorin, this so-called consensus candidate, who is not an APC member, who did not buy any Nomination Form, and who was not screened, was accepted by our National Secretariat as the Benue APC CONSENSUS CANDIDATE. 

After we protested this, it appears the National Secretariat has been provided with manufactured results purporting to have come from an APC Governorship Primaries that did not hold. On both occasions when the Primaries were about to hold in Makurdi, they were halted mid-way by court injunctions.  For the National Secretariat to give the APC guber ticket to this “Consensus Candidate,” on the basis of fictitious primaries, and to as well award us scores in the same fictitious primary election is the height of irresponsibility.  

And coming from our party, this is most shocking! If life imitates art, this is it: Benue APC is doing it well.  And if there is anything like the theatre of the absurd, it is right now playing in Benue state. How unfortunate!This is more so as this PDP jugernaut, was the arrow-head of the PDP rigging machine in 2011 (the Gumanisation of votes),thereby making it possible for the minority PDP to retain gubernatorial power at the expense of the ACN (the APC pillar) which won the governorship election then.  As it were, the process has favoured this “Consensus Candidate” while we bona fide party members, who are also aspirants, have been shut out. 

This is why we are here. Although we remain loyal to the party, both at the State and National levels, we are all here to tell the APC National Secretariat that this is the time to intervene;  that their silence is no longer golden; that things have fallen apart;  and that if they tarry any longer, the centre may no longer hold, and we  may have  lost the  battle for 2015 even before we started it. In a nutshell, we plead with our party: Please, do not impose a candidate on us. 

Let us produce an acceptable candidate through transparent processes that are laid down by our great party, the APC. 

Thank you all.                                                                                                                                                        Signatures  Sen. J.K.N. Waku             ……………………………………..

  Prof. Steve T. Ugbah      …………………………………….. 

 Chief Akange Audu        …………………………………....                           

  Hon. Emmanuel Jime    …………………………………… 

 Chief Mike Iordye     …………………………

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