When the pioneer national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, dismissed the party’s ongoing membership registration and revalidation exercise as an unnecessary waste of resources, many had thought he was just a lone voice in the wilderness, crying wolf.
But more party stalwarts, yesterday, raised Akande’s solitary observation to an alarm status, warning that the party faces a blowout if issues concerning the exercise were not quickly addressed.
Immediate past national chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, yesterday, said the revalidation called by the Interim Caretaker Committee was contrary to the party’s constitution.
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Oshiomhole said this while fielding questions from journalists, shortly after revalidating his membership at Unit 1, ward 10, Iyamho, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State.
“APC is governed by a constitution, not by man. The constitution only provides for registration and I registered as a member of the APC in 2014 under the then Interim national chairman Chief Bisi Akande,” he said.
“There is nothing in the APC constitution that says a member shall revalidate or renew his or her membership. Once you registered when you joined the party and you have not decamped, you are a member. So, revalidation is strange to our constitution.”
He said he agreed to participate in the exercise because he wanted peace to reign in the party. “But, in doing this, we have to be careful not to create constitutional breach,” Oshiomhole warned.
Oshiomhole, however, noted that, since 2015, many people had exited the party; others had joined the party, while some had died. He added that, although it was reasonable to document new membership and delete old ones through periodic reviews, it would be wrong to ask a foundation member like himself to revalidate his membership. “That would be double registration because there is nothing like revalidation in our constitution.”
The former Edo State Governor, whose turbulent tenure as APC chairman ended amid protracted intra-party squabbles with his successor political son, Governor Godwin Obaseki, said the APC had been updating its register from time to time and noted that many APC governors became members following register updates that enabled them to contest the governorship election under the APC.
“So, what this means is that I have come here to do another registration. But I insist that my registration never expired within the provision of the APC constitution.
“History didn’t just begin today. If we did not have a valid register, how did we conduct the congress in 2015 in which 16 million registered APC members voted to nominate President Muhammadu Buhari before the general election?”
Oshiomhole recalled that he was the one that presented APC membership card to Buhari at one of the party’s National Executive Council meeting in Abuja.
“I am a founding governor of APC; I am not a creation of APC. Some of those who have become rowdy here and there came to join the APC, but we formed the APC,” he boasted.
Akande, who was also a former governor of Osun State, had, in reaction to the registration/revalidation exercise in Ila Orangun, Osun State, described it as a waste of time and resources, which if not carefully controlled and expeditiously managed, might end up in contempt and disgrace.
He argued that the exercise, which shares similar features with census, should not be repeated in less than a decade, especially as voters are not re-registered at every election.
He pointed out that it was an aberration for the party to carry out the exercise less than a decade after the first one was conducted.
He said: “I see the present APC membership registration within less than a decade after the original register as an indefensible aberration leading to certain ugly perceptions.
“The first major perception is that APC, already having a well-computerised register for an average of 100 leaders of similar ideological orientation per each of the more than 120,000 polling units across Nigeria, might be lacking comprehension and matrix of the modern-day technology.
“What I mean by national caucus is all the stakeholders that were involved in the founding of the party, who are still members till date should be invited if possible at the Presidential Villa where we can speak the truth and confront one another with the facts of what is going on in this party.
“I want to emphasise again that it is necessary that a national caucus meeting be called now to discuss the soul of the APC.”
Adebayo, in a telephone conversation with The Guardian, said, “I will definitely go and do my own registration/revalidation over the weekend due to work exigency right now. I am in support of the exercise and I believe it will reposition and make the party stronger.”
Ex-national chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, dismissed insinuation that the registration/revalidation exercise by the party was aimed at destroying the political base of any party member.
