The Plateau State All Progressives Congress (APC) recently conducted a rancour-free congress, which has fostered unity and cohesion in the chapter. Correspondent YUSUF IDEGU, who monitored the exercise, reports.
THE recent wards, local governments and state congresses of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the Plateau were widely adjudged to be orderly and rancour-free. There were no incidences of ballot box snatching, hijacking of electoral materials and harassment of electoral committee members. There was also no incidence of violence or burning of the state secretariat of the party. In this regard, the Plateau State chapter of the party could be said to have demonstrated a sense of fair play, maturity and internal democracy.
Its Chairman, Hon. Latep Dabang, said the congresses were peaceful and successful because the APC National Executive Council (NEC) had laid the ground rules for the exercise and the Plateau chapter adhered to the national body’s resolutions. The resolutions, he said, are: zoning arrangements be retained in all the states; anyone vying for any of the positions at the wards, local government, states and at the national level should contest from the zone where the incumbents comes from; those who are in office are required to resign three months to the congress, if they are given waivers to re-contest. The national body also granted waivers to members who defected from other political parties to the APC but were yet to be duly registered.
Dabang said: “The party constitution says you have to be a card-carrying member of the party before you can contest any election and, since they came, the process of registration of the new members had not been done in many states. As for us in Plateau, we would not have been affected because we did the registration of the new members before we went into primaries for local governments’ elections, so we have registered our own decampees in Plateau State. Since many of the states had not done so, NEC did resolve to give them waiver.
“But the waiver has a proviso that the new member’s name must be on the registered party members at their wards. Then, the third resolution was that, as much as possible, the congress must be devoid of rancour and acrimony. The National Executive Committee also encouraged the states to go for consensus, so as to minimize the frictions that are always associated with such exercise.”
The Chairman added: “So, we educated our members on all these modalities at our state executive council meeting. Then zonal leaders were mandated to go back to their zones and sensitize their people. The same thing was to be done at the local governments and ward levels. Of course, in carrying out the responsibility, series of meetings were held at all levels, to inform everyone about the desire of the party to have rancour-free congresses. You know we have our own little security challenges in Plateau, so we have to do more work to ensure a peaceful exercise.
“It would have been foolish for us as a party to do anything that will truncate the good work done by Governor Simon Lalong to restore peace. We are very sensitive of the fact that the state government is embarking on peace building, and we don’t need to do anything to bring another round of conflict to the state. So, we foresaw that it would be easier for us to go by consensus than elections.
“So, if we have performed any magic, this is how we did it. We put into consideration the fragile nature of our security and decided to go by consensus. But, we did not stop at that. We made sure that we used radio and television to sensitize everyone about the congresses and the modalities for the exercise. So, all the local governments agreed that they were going to do affirmation, instead of election. The message was further taken to the wards; we spent weeks and days sensitizing our people on the need to have a rancour-free congress. A lot of efforts were put in place to let the people realize that we need to work like a family and not as enemies.
“Apart from that, Governor Lalong mobilized his political appointees to go back to their local governments and ensure they sensitised their people, so as to have a peaceful congress. It was a marching order that he gave his appointees. So, both government and the party played crucial roles to make sure we had peaceful congresses on the Plateau.
“But, even at that, the security agencies were also proactive in doing their job. They were on ground in all the wards in good numbers and on time; their presence alone gave people confidence that security operatives are taking the issue very serious.”
As a result, there were no parallel congresses in Plateau State. The exercise attracted only one petition. The author of the petition, Mr. Johnson Podar, had purchased a nomination form to contest the election, but was disqualified by the electoral committee. Immediately after the state congress, he submitted his petition to the appeal committee chaired by Hon. Babatunde Monday.
After the sitting of the election appeal committees on the petition, Monday briefed reporters about the findings of the committee. He said: “Yes, we have the mandate of the APC to look at any grievances coming from the state congress, and we received only one potion from one Mr. Johnson Podar, who complained that he was unjustly disqualified from the contest.
“One of the party guidelines is that the appeal committee should first of all verify that the petitioner is a fully registered member of the party in his ward. The petitioner who claimed he is a member of the party could not justify his membership. All the documents he tendered to justify his membership were forged. All the party officials from his ward and the local government in Pankshin testified that he is not a registered member.
“However, we have advised the new party executive to do an internal reconciliation and allow the petitioner to follow the laid down rules and get himself registered. That was why the man was disqualified in the first place. In all, we found out that the election of Hon. Latep Dabang as the state chairman was authentic and credible.
“We want to use this opportunity to commend our delegates for the peaceful conduct of the congresses. This shows that the Plateau State chapter believes in internal democracy. The example of Plateau State should be emulated by other states.”
Apart from the state congress that attracted one petition, the one at the ward and local government level were so peaceful that no one sent petition to the appeal committee. The APC took over power in the state after the last general elections in 2015. Before then, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had ruled the state for 16 years. Considering the APC’s narrow victory over the PDP in 2015, there were still doubts whether the former will be able to retain the state in next year’s general elections. But, the peaceful conduct of the recent APC congresses is a positive sign that it has all it takes to hold on to power beyond 2019.