Delta APC crisis: Keyamo warns committee against influencing revalidation exercise

Festus Keyamo, minister of state, labour and employment, has warned the chairman of the Delta state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) revalidation committee against influencing the exercise.

The exercise was said to have ended in violence on February 3 after Jones Erue, state APC caretaker committee chairman, allegedly removed some names from the nomination list to favour a faction in the party.

The state chapter of the APC has been embroiled in a leadership crisis with different factions arising from the camps of Ovie Omo-Agege, the deputy-senate president, Keyamo and Great Ogboru.

In a statement on Wednesday, Keyamo asked the committee chairman to ensure fairness and equity in the nomination of coordinators across the factions in the party so as to enable a smooth process.

“As you are set to distribute your materials to the LGA coordinators on Wednesday, February 10, 2021, you must bear in mind the need to balance all the delicate interests within the APC in Delta State in such a way that you don’t put the entire materials meant for any LGA in the hands of two coordinators solely nominated by a particular political leader in the State, including myself,” he said.

“That will be unfair, unjust and unacceptable and will be a recipe for chaos in the state. My sources tell me that this is exactly what you plan to do. You need to stop. The evolution of APC in Delta State is unique to the extent that a clear Party leader has not emerged under whom everyone have agreed to congregate. At least, no such decision has been taken by stakeholders in Delta State. I can say this confidently because I am a founding member and a leader of the Party in the State.

“The fact that the stakeholders have not been able to do this is a testament to the different tendencies that exists within the Party in the State. Whilst we all respect and defer to positions of authority that some of us have been privileged to assume at the national level, political leadership back home is a different ball game.

“As a result of this, all Party faithfuls throng after different leaders in the State. It is therefore imperative that these different leaders and their supporters have EASY access to these materials for registration. This will not happen if you put the materials in any LGA only in the hands of a PARTICULAR tendency within the Party. Since we are not using the Party structures to drive the process, then you must fall back on these leaders and their nominees to drive the process.

“Even as Minister representing the entire State in the Federal Cabinet, I am not asking for any undue advantage: I am only asking for fairness and equity to be administered to everyone. You are therefore advised to first identify the leaders (like you have done in the last few days). Ensure that no one leader has TWO nominees in ANY PARTICULAR LGA. Also ensure that there is no much disparity between the number of nominees the leaders nominate for the exercise in all the LGAs.

“I know that you, like all the members of the Committee, were nominated to serve by certain leaders. I also nominated a member. It is an open secret. No need to play the ostrich. If you skew the process to favour a particular person/leader, I will be mobilising all other leaders of like minds in the State to reject your Committee and call for its total disbandment.”