NEDU MARK, Yenagoa
As the countdown to the 2016 governorship election in Bayelsa State continues, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC , Mr. Godwin Sidi, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and other national leaders of the party to intervene in the crisis rocking the state chapter of the party.
Sidi, former Secretary of the defunct New Peoples Democratic Party, was among the seven leaders of the APC who were suspended for alleged anti-party activities.
The party chief said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that his appeal to the national leaders to intervene in the crisis was to save the party in the state from disintegration.
Sidi, who described his suspension as unconstitutional, claimed that the person (State Secretary of APC, Marlin Daniel) who announced his suspension was no longer the party’s Secretary as at the time he made the announcement, since he had already resigned his position.
“I find it expedient to react to the said suspension, reason being that the person who made the announcement, Mr. Marlin Daniel, does not have the capacity to do so because he is no longer the secretary of our great party, APC.
“You may recall that the so-called Marlin Daniel resigned as the state secretary to contest the just concluded House of Assembly elections and as such he is no longer the secretary.
“If by any means he is parading himself as one, he should be regarded as an impostor and the public should disregard him. There is no truth in the suspension and it is baseless and does not hold water.
“I am therefore calling on the South-South Vice Chairman and national leadership of our great party to intervene in order to strengthen the state structure. Their intervention will also avert disintegration ahead of the coming governorship election in the state. ”
The APC stalwart alleged that the motive behind the suspension was to divert the attention of members of the APC and the public from the gross misconduct and abuse of office by the state Chairman, Tiwei Orunimighe and his cronies.
Speaking further on the crisis within the party, an elder in the state chapter of the APC, Mr. Christopher Abiriowei, said the suspension on Monday of some leaders of the APC, including himself, was illegal and lacking in fair hearing.
“Some of the APC members allegedly connived among themselves to suspend some party members without following the party’s rules and constitution as well as the law of fair hearing,” he said, stressing that “we the concerned members of the party still remain resolute in the quest to bring change to the party for utmost result ahead of the forth coming governorship elections in the state.”
