30th July, 2015
Jethro Ibileke/Benin
Certainly these are not the best of time for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) both at the national level and in Edo state, following the rebellion of some of its federal lawmakers to the party’s directive on its choice of candidates for principal offices at the national assembly.
Also, the Working Committee of Edo state chapter of the party on Wednesday called on its Chairman, Anslem Ojezua, to resign his chairmanship forthwith for “having glorified himself in failure.”
The state Committee described as a bad omen, a recent vote of confidence purportedly passed on Mr. Ojezua by members of the party in Edo Central Senatorial District.
Rising from emergency meeting in Benin City, the state Working Committee declared that to hail the leadership of Mr. Ojezua as exemplary for losing all elections at his unit, ward, local government area and senatorial district in the Presidential/National Assembly, portends doom for the party for as long as he remains Chairman.
They also called on the Senatorial Chairman, Chief Henry Okoror to tender unreserved public apology to the party for hosting and presiding over the meeting in which failure and betrayal were celebrated otherwise face sanctions.
A press statement issued and signed by the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Comrade Godwin Erhahon, said it was the view of the Committee that the outcome of the meeting where the offensive vote of confidence was passed vindicated those who accused the APC leadership in that Senatorial District of selling out to their kinsmen, Chief Tony Anenih and Tom Ikimi both of PDP during the elections.
“The Committee lamented that the only three seats APC lost to PDP in the State Assembly election were in the same senatorial District where it earlier lost all National Assembly seats to PDP. It therefore wondered why they embarked on the self-praising jamboree as if failure was what they set forth to achieve in the elections.
“We rebuked Mr. Ojezua as a never-do-well, lazy, lousy, and shameless leader who gloats at his own failure.
The celebration of such woeful failure could only be as a result of monetary gains realized from the sell-out and as such, tantamount to jubilation over the successful betrayal of the party. APC therefore appealed to all those who worked hard to achieved the victory recorded in the Edo North and South Senatorial Districts not to be discouraged by the attitude of the traitors in the Central Senatorial District,” ste statement said.
The Working Committee also challenged Mr. Ojezua to defend the allegation that he sold all APC poll agents identification tags for the Presidential/National Assembly elections to his masters in PDP, hence there was no tags for APC, a situation that weakened the party representation at the polling boots.
It also lamented how Mr. Ojezua “misled the State Executive Committee to adopt Chief Tom Ikimi against Chief Oyegun ahead of the National Convention, only to rush shamelessly to Chief Oyegun at the venue of the convention when Chief Ikimi was nowhere to be found without carrying along, those he had misled.”