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The Ruling All Progressives Congress, APC will soon suffer mass defection of its members who until the merger that produced party were in the new PDP.
This is as the 7-days ultimatum given by the nPDP block in APC expires today with obviously nothing done to address the grievances and concerns raised by the group.
The nPDP had last Week stormed the National Secretariat of APC in Abuja where they presented a protest letter signed by the Chairman, Abubakar Baraje and Secretary, Olagunsoye Oyinlola demanding an urgent meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari and APC leadership to address their grievances.
The nPDP in the letter decried marginalization, non inclusion and harassment of its members despite the huge contribution the group made to bring APC to power in 2015.
“There has been no significant patronage and appointments to executive positions in various government agencies such as Chief Executives and Executive Directors of government agencies and parastatals as members of our block of the party continue to helplessly watch as these positions are shared by the erstwhile CPC, ACN, ANPP and even APGA blocks of the party and those who have no party at all.
“There has been general lack of consultation, non recognition and even persecution of former New PDP members and leaders by the party and government. For example, some of our leaders are denied the security cover necessary to visit their constituencies even though they are elected representatives of the people in a government they sacrificed so much for”, the letter read in part.
However, as the ultimatum ends today, APC has done nothing tangible regarding the nPDP demands as the National Publicity Secretary of APC, Bolaji Abdullahi Sunday said that he was not aware of anything has been done at the moment.
“It is possible that some things have been done. But it is not I’m aware of. It is possible discussions or things are happening beyond my clearance level. But it’s not what I’m aware of”. The APC Spokesman stated.
Meanwhile, another faction of the nPDP led by Abdullahi Adamu, Senator Representing Nasarawa West yesterday debunked the claims of the Baraje group alleging that their views do not either reflect the reality nor represent the position of the entire nPDP.
Adamu argued that there was no nPDP hence all political parties that merged into APC have lost their identity even as and accused the Baraje group of planning to cause total damage to APC before leaving as they were evidently no longer in the ruling party.
The former Nasarawa state Governor gave this indications in a parallel letter presented to the National Chairman of APC, John Oyegun at the Party’s Secretariat, Abuja, saying Baraje group’s letter as full of contradictions, false assertions, misrepresentations, distortion of history and facts and in many instances outright lies.
“We as initiators and founding members of the defunct nPDP there fore wish to condemn and disassociate ourselves from the letter and apologise for the obvious embarrassment the letter have caused to our party and government.
“We wish to reaffirm our support and confidence in the party and Mr President and we do not in any way feel marginalized or maltreated as we are clearly in the league of the biggest beneficiaries of the party.
“We ordinarily would have ignore such a joke but it is a dangerous joke taking too far. How can you explain that one of the two signatories to the letter Col Olagunsoye Oyinlola RTD has since left the APC for the African Democratic Party ADP after going on AWOL to the Obasanjo Coalition for Nigeria.
“Yet same person is asking to meet the APC leadership to Adress grievances? This clearly shows the sinister motive behind the letter which is not far from destabilizing the party at this most critical time”, the letter read.
James Kwen, Abuja
