Ahead of the All Progressives Congress, APC, national convention, former governor of Imo State and the senator representing Imo Central senatorial district at the National Assembly, Senator Rochas Okorocha, has proffered solution to the crisis rocking the ruling party, leading to repeatedly postponed national convention.
Speaking to Senate correspondents after Tuesday’s plenary, the former governor specifically suggested that founding leaders of the party across the original four blocks, should be allowed to nominate interested party members for sensitive positions, such as National Chairman, National Secretary, Women Leader, Youth Leader, Organising Secretary, among others.
Okorocha said that while President Muhammadu Buhari, as leader of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, bloc should be given the honour of deciding who becomes the next National Chairman of the party, others like Senator Bola Tinubu of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, bloc, Ogbonnaya Onu of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, bloc, and himself as leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, faction then, should also be honoured with deciding who occupied the National Secretary and other important positions in the party.
According to the lawmaker, sharing the party’s positions on that basis, will help in preventing the ship of the party from hitting the rock.
Okorocha said, “Our party is a great party, APC is a great party, what is wrong with our party is that we have forgotten how we all started, we should not make the mistake of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of the old and I think that will be corrected with the party’s national convention now slated for March 26, 2022.
“What we need to do is to go back to basis, so that we adhere to the culture of unity and equity the party was known for at formation in 2013.
“There were four political parties that formed the APC – the defunct CPC led by Buhari, who is now the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Tinubu came with the defunct ACN, Governor Abdulaziz Yari, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, SAS, and former governor of Ebonyi State, Ogbonna Onu, who is now Minister of Science and Technology and Rochas Okorocha, leading the APGA.
“Our initial position was that all positions would be shared among these four parties and DPP that came with few members, and after the merger, the new PDP joined.
“Now, the wisest thing for all of us to do is to go back to the founding basis and distribute the political positions as we did it that time, and there will be no rancour and it will be very peaceful.
“The father of the party now is President Buhari, who should be given that respect to pick the person that will hold sensitive position in the party as Chairman, Asiwaju Tinubu should always be made to produce some key positions in the party and the other parties should also be made to have positions and when this is done there will be no problem in APC.
“But, if we go into election at this time and of course it will open a pandora of litigations, because where 1000 people buy nominations form, APC can make an income of N2 billion on sales of forms and after that, APC can spend N3 billion on litigations.
“So the wise thing to do is to call the founding fathers of the party and give them key positions and carry everyone along, including the new people that joined the party.”
