The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has said that any State Executive Committee of the party that takes side against any aspirant, group or individuals in the party’s governorship primary election on Saturday will be dissolved.
He said this while handing over the party’s membership register to its state chairmen under the APC Forum of State Chairman on Wednesday in Abuja.
He stressed that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) had the power to disband any state executive that failed to represent the party’s interest without giving reason.
Oshiomhole explained that the business of the state executives should not be confused with their personal preferences, particularly in states where there were more than one aspirants contesting for a position. “If you do that, and it is not going to be secret, we will, without any hesitation disband the entire executive.
“The NWC has the power without giving reasons to disband any executive which in its opinion, is no longer fit and competent to represent the party in respective states. There is only one party known to law, and that is the APC, so, please, resist any temptation.
“We have seen embarrassment where people go on television canvassing positions of their governors or declaring one person as the sole candidate. You don’t have those powers, and if you do so, not only can you be dissolved, you can be prosecuted for breach of oath of office and oath of allegiance to the APC,” Oshiomhole said.
He urged the party’s state chairmen to remain neutral and be seen to be neutral, even when they had their preferences as human beings, adding that the state chairmen must create a level playing field for all aspirants and not to allow themselves to be used by political big wigs in their respective states.
He further added that as state chairmen, they were stewards of the party not its owners, saying that the party belonged to the members.
Oshiomhole, however, warned the state chairmen not to tamper with the register being handed over to them, or destroy it.
“If anybody thinks if you destroy what you have, you would have destroyed the evidence, you only would have implicated yourself. Because we have it stored in flash drive and can always reproduce, but then you would have come under sanction.
“Please know the difference between your responsibilities to the party and your individual inner preferences with regards to any of the offices,including President, Governors, Senators and House of Assembly members,” he said.
He warned that until an aspirant emerged as the party’s candidate, the state chairmen should not adopt him or associate with him in a manner that would make others feel had no fair chance in the conduct the primaries.
He further added that the details for conducting both direct and indirect primaries would be worked out, distributed and published and would be strictly adhered to in all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The APC National Working Committee had on Tuesday, banned the party’s Adamawa State Working Committee from participating either as delegates or to superintendent over the governorship primaries in the state.
According to Yekini Nabena, the APC National Publicity Secretary, the NWC was banned because it was prejudiced in favour of a particular governorship aspirant.
Oshiomhole had, on Sept. 12, told President Muhammadu Buhari while he was submitting his Presidential Expression of Interest and Nomination forms to contest the presidency in 2019, that the party currently had 15.6 million registered members.
He said the APC under his leadership, took advantage of modern technology to come up with a new membership data base.