APC Crisis: Group Wants Timi Frank Sanctioned

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, Politics Tuesday, June 16th, 2015

By Chuks Ehirim – The crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress[APC] over the leadership row at the National Assembly, has taken a new turn as an attempt to rubbish the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, by another party member, has met with very stiff resistance.

The group operating under the aegis of Fresh Hope for Nigeria (FHN) has come down hard on the Deputy National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for condemning the position of the party over the recent elections of the National Assembly, thereby calling for strong sanctions against him.

The group believed that Mr. Timi could not have ordinarily come out bold to do such thing if not that he has allowed himself to be used by some interests within and outside the party.

A statement signed yesterday in Abuja by the national coordinator of the group, Comrade Tamuno Banigo, said Timi outrightly acted in error to have attacked the leadership of his party on the pages of newspapers.

“He has even gone ahead to call himself a member of the National Working Committee, this is a lie, Timi Frank should not continue to confuse members of the public. He is not known as a member of NWC.”

While reacting to some of the issues raised in the report, the group explained that the policy of the party is that they wanted to present one candidate for the National Assembly leadership election and to provide a platform to achieve that, and that was what has been guiding the party in all the primaries that have been organised on the basis of providing a level playground for all the members of the party.

According to Banigo, “Nobody is allowed to dictate for the party on how thing should be done.

Speaking on the mock election conducted before the inauguration of the NASS, he said what the party did was to provide platform for all its members at the National Assembly to freely choose preferred candidates for all the positions.

“This is what the party feel it owes its members and we will continue to do that.”

On whether party intervention was late in coming, he said it is a matter of individual opinion, saying, as far as the party was concern the step taken was taken at the right time.

On the issue that the national chairman of the party was under pressure, Banigo revealed that “the chairman of a big party like APC is always under pressure from all interest groups “but his job is to manage such pressure and be able to come up with what is in the best interest of the party.

“Different people want different thing but the job of the chairman is to moderate to get what is the best for the party.”