The Kogi chapter of the APC has rejected the choice of persons by the party’s national working committee (NWC) as replacements for the former deputy national publicity secretary of the party and the former zonal organising secretary, who resigned recently.

The state APC chairman, Abdullahi Bello, in a statement in Lokoja on Thursday, claimed that the positions were wrongly replaced with names that did not emanate from the state chapter.

“We hereby wish to disassociate ourselves from ratified replacement as the action of the NWC is a clear contravention of the party’s constitution.

“This is because consequent upon the resignation of the two officers, the Kogi APC, under the leadership of Gov. Yahaya Bello, met to ratify and forward names of replacements for the national and zonal officers that left the party.

“We are bold to state here that this unfortunate development or plot, is the handiwork of some known agents of destabilisation.

“This is because as the state chapter, we had ratified Yahaya Ade Ismail as the new Deputy National Publicity Secretary and Isiaka Musa as the Zonal Organising Secretary for North Central.

“In line with the provisions of the party’s constitution, we communicated the ratified replacements to the NWC, through the North Central Zonal Chairman of the party.

“But to our dismay, the national working committee came up with strange names which didn’t pass through the state chapter nor the north central zone of the party and purportedly went ahead to ratify them, citing “Presidency interest” as the rationale for their action.

“Of course, we strongly reject the action as we will not be parties to the blatant and flagrant violation of our party’s constitution,” the chairman said.

Mr Bello added that they believed in the President as a man, “who respects the constitution of our party and a man who believes in due process is unshaken in the face of the current confusion foisted on the party by people dropping the name of the President to achieve their selfish aims.”

He then urged the APC NWC to reverse the unconstitutional replacements done on “our behalf without our ratification or approval, and revert to our ratified list as they occupy those offices on behalf of the state chapter of our party.”

According to him, they have delivered Kogi to the APC and the least they will expect is for the party hierarchy to continue to support them to achieve greater heights.

“It’s in this light that the Kogi chapter of the APC strongly rejects the decision of the NWC in its entirety and urge it to follow the constitution of our party and the due process our party is known for.

“We are confident that the interest of the party is for Kogi to remain a stronghold of the APC, especially now that we march toward the Nov. 11 governorship election to retain the state,” he declared.

(NAN)