The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Convention Central Working Committee and former Katsina State Governor, Bello Masari, has clarified the zoning arrangement for the election of members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
Masari made the clarification while reacting to allegations that some aspirants paid for forms for the NWC positions, but were denied access.
He said, “Like I said, and I will repeat: APC is a responsible party. In line with the federal character principle, all offices are zoned. If you come to buy a form, you must buy only for the position set aside for your zone.
“When an office is zoned to ‘A’ and you are from ‘Z’ but want to buy a form for ‘A,’ we suspect you are only there to create confusion. Who wants confusion? The way our country is, the structures of the party are based on zones. The NWC members are distributed according to these zones.
“If you are contesting for an office that is not zoned to your region, how can you say you are being democratic? We suspect such people may be interested as agents coming to destroy our party, which we will not allow. And I know Nigerians will not agree to that.”
Regarding threats by affected persons to sue the party, Masari noted, “We are not aware that anybody has gone to court; we have not been served. We are a responsible party. If we are served, we will take notice of that. You cannot pay for something that you don’t have. You can only hold onto what belongs to you.”
Meanwhile, about 8,453 delegates have arrived in Abuja, the nation’s capital, for the 8th National Convention of the party, which begins today.
The Chairman of the Media and Publicity Committee for the convention and Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, disclosed this while fielding questions at a world press conference ahead of the event.
He confirmed that all delegates arrived safely and that the party is fully prepared for the exercise.
While assuring that the convention would be transparent, the Minister urged journalists covering the event to remain factual and patriotic in their reportage.
In the meantime, all roads leading to the Eagle Square, venue of the convention, have been closed to the motorists.