The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has dissolved all states, zonal, and national party structures even as it extended the tenure of the party’s caretaker extraordinary convention planning committee led by Governor Mai Buni by six months.
This is one of the decisions taken at a virtual meeting of the committee attended by the President Muhammadu Buhari; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and other party chieftains.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai said the NEC also approved the expulsion of former National Vice Chairman, South-south, Ntufam Hilliard Eta, for not withdrawing his court case against the Buni-led caretaker committee.
Earlier in his opening remarks at the meeting, Buhari appealed to party members at all levels to make sacrifices in the interest of the party.
“I want to appeal to all our party members and leaders at all levels, to try and make the required sacrifices so that we are able to collectively restore our progressive and democratic political party, which can nurture and give expression to our collective dream of building a strong, united and developed Nigeria.
“May I use this opportunity to remind all of us of the need to recreate our negotiation secret of 2012, 2013 under our legacy parties. What guided our success to achieve the merger that produced the APC was the respect we were able to have for each other.
“In those times, decisions reached at both formal and informal consultations were respected with trusted initiatives taken and believed that they were needed to produce the required political platform that could guarantee electoral victory.
“Everyone of us as leaders ensured that those decisions were respected. I have through consultations of the caretaker committee and other leaders of the party, agree that our challenges in the party require that we take steps to rebuild the party from wards to national levels.
“The initiative to carry out membership registration revalidation is, therefore, a necessary, membership registration revalidation will lay the foundation for reorganizing our membership from ward to local government, state, and national levels.
“The responsibility of our party’s NEC at this meeting is to adopt and dispassionately consider all proposals submitted by the caretaker committee and grant all the necessary approvals requested to rebuild the party.”
Reacting to the development, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) congratulated Nigerians saying the APC “has finally dissolves out of our political firmament.”
In a statement by its spokesman Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to “officially deregister the APC and recall its certificate of registration, given that it no longer has operational structures as required by law.”
“In the same vein, INEC should immediately declare the seat of all lawmakers elected on the platform of APC at the federal and state levels as vacant and commence the process of bye-election to fill the seats, as required by law.
“Furthermore, government agencies, civil society organizations as well as the international community should immediately gazette the APC as a defunct political organization in our country.
“Nevertheless, the PDP invites all leaders of the fizzled APC to get ready to answer Nigerians for their misdeeds, and not to think they can get away with their atrocities by forming or joining another political party.”
