By Nsan Ndoma-Neji, Calabar
The chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Cross River State, Alphonsus Ogar Eba Esq, yesterday stated that the party was yet to zone state governorship position to any of the three senatorial districts in the state, insisting that such decision can only be taken by the party hierarchy when the caucus meets.
This is coming months after the state governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, made a pronouncement that the seat of governor has been zoned to South senatorial district, in fulfilment of a promise he made in 2019, while campaigning for his second term in office.
Ogar disclosed this while speaking at the flagging off of the second phase of the party’s membership drive, which he tagged as ‘political evangelism.’
The APC chairman averred that a final position was yet to be taken by the party, stressing that such a critical decision would only be taken at the caucus level, after a yet to be convene meeting which would soon hold.
Ogar stressed that the various party caucuses will soon be constituted from the local government level, and indeed up to grassroot level, where stakeholders can have the opportunity to select and present the best candidates for all elective positions in the state.
He said that although the governor had sometimes ago made such a promise to zone the seat of governor to South,Ogar added that that was the governor’s personal opinion, which was fine, reiterating that as a person too, he holds such opinion, but the decision of party stakeholders counts in circumstances of this nature.
Ogar stressed that the governor’s expression of an opinion was just as he expressed his own opinion in the past, but that doesn’t represent the final position of the party.
He said, “The party has not zoned the governorship position and that decision will be taken in a proper caucus of the state executive.
“The constitution of the party spells out those who are members of the caucus; the beauty of it is that the governor is one of the persons that is going to sit in that caucus meeting, as state chairman I will sit there, former National Assembly members, local government chairmen, some recognized officers will be part of it as stated in Article 9 of the party.”
In a related development, Governor Ayade has charged the state chapter of the party to eradicate divisive tendencies from the party so that men and women in the party can co-exist peacefully with one another.
Ogar maintained that the state governor wants an end to the division that exist between old and new members of the APC in Cross River State, stressing that the governor doesn’t want the members who built the APC house to feel side-lined.
The chairman enthused, “Put an end to anything called old and new, and everybody in the APC that is involved in administration from the polling unit structure must also eradicate this line of division.
“We must not give room to members of this party who built the house before some of us came to live in to feel side-lined.
“So in whatever we do, there must be proper balance, equity, fairness, and so every member of this party, whether you joined the party before 2014 or you joined on May 20, 2021, we are all on equal base.
“We all have equal rights based on the waiver that has been given by the national office. Everybody is eligible to contest so the task for you is to return to your unit and people and sell yourself.”
Throwing more light on the second phase of the membership drive, Ogar stated that the success recorded during the first phase, where over one million people were registered, necessitated the need for the second phase and another one million people are being targeted.
He said, “When we came on board, we told our people that our mission was political evangelism. The first phase of that evangelical mission has recorded huge successes.
“The benefit of that was that the number of registered members of the APC today has increased tremendously.
“In fact I was alerted that the various chapter chairmen ran short of registration materials and the party took it upon itself to again go and procure materials that will be able to register another one million people into our party.
“Today we are happy to say that we have started another phase of political evangelism.
“It is coming at a time where we expect all members of the party, which are the one million members we have, to be commissioned as political evangelists.”
The state party chairman maintained that all aspirants seeking to run election on the APC’s platform must first go to their units and and win souls for the party, adding that such is the partnership the party wants from them.
