Nigeria’s former vice president and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar has advised the national chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun to immediately retrace his steps to forestall rancour and division in the party.
He disclosed this on Wednesday via a statement by his media office in Abuja.
While reacting to the fracas between Oyegun and the party’s national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu following the party’s decision to discard the reports of its Appeal Committees on the party’s primaries in Ondo state which nullified the exercise that produced Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) as the party’s candidate in the coming gubernatorial election, Abubakar said “It was wrong for the APC to have set aside a resolution it had reached, aimed at resolving the crisis in our party in Ondo State. It is a recipe for acrimony and division.”
The statement reads: “it is imperative for the national leadership of the party to live by the rules of internal democracy and respect for democratic consensus”, adding that “you cannot break your own rules without creating problems.
“Since the APC found veritable reasons to review the outcome of the gubernatorial primary election it conducted in Ondo State, and was able to establish valid grounds to cancel that election and call for a fresh one, the decision to deviate from its own resolution is a negation of due process and an unfashionable hollow in democratic best practices.
He urged “the APC on the promotion of rule of law and due process in the conduct of its affairs noting that they are germane to the unity and stability of the party”.
He further advised the aggrieved members of the party in Ondo state “to exercise restraint in seeking redress to the crisis, while also urging the leadership of the party to retrace its steps and do the needful to restore confidence among the conflicting parties in the state for the overall benefit of the ruling party”.
