Former Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Plateau State, Chief Letep Dabang, has said he left the party as state chairman due to high handedness of the then Governor Simon Lalong.
Dabang claimed he had to resign when he realized that there was no internal democracy in APC in the state.
Speaking to newsmen in his Jos residence yesterday, Letep, who is the political adviser to Governor Caleb Mutfwang, said that he was totally at a loss how the Appeal Court arrived at its conclusion that PDP lacked the structure to nominate candidates for the 2023 general elections.
He said that even the current chairman of APC, Mr. Rufus Bature, did not purchase any form to contest the position.
He said: “Well for me, if there is any political party that has no structure, it’s the APC. All of us are living witnesses to how the leadership of the party emerged. In 2021, APC collapsed. No doubt about that.
“It became obvious that internal democracy was not going to be obeyed. Councillorship candidate, chairmanship candidates were simply selected. And when it got to the congresses, all the election or purported congresses that took place at local and ward levels were stage-managed.
“There were lots of hues and cries that showed clearly that there was no proper election that produced the current executive of the party in the state. We at a point had to apply to INEC to give us the certified copies as observers of the congress.
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“And the results were appalling, that majority of the wards there was no congresses that took place. It was also obvious that majority of the local government did not obey the tenets of democracy in electing their officers. It snowballed into the ugly situation took place at Crest Hotel where the state officers of the party were nominated.
“And so I am at a loss why and how they say PDP has no structure. We know the circumstances that prevented us from participating in the local government election and the court said we should go and repeat it.
“It’s also on record that the congress was successfully held where the current leadership of PDP emerged and in this second congress, nobody complained because there were no issues. I heard people say there was no substantial compliance but who is complaining about this substantial non-compliance. To me, I think some people resurrected what had been buried completely to suit some people’s purposes.”
The former chairman said that it was because of the way things were going in APC and how the former governor monopolised the structure of APC on Plateau that forced him to resign.
Dabang however expressed hope that the Supreme Court will look at the issues dispassionately and do the needful. He also asked the National Judicial Council (NJC) to look at the cases of the lawmakers sacked by the Appeal Court over issues of structures.