4th January, 2020
By Jethro Ibileke
Ahead of the governorship election in Edo state later this year, the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Friday inaugurated a mobilisation committee for the membership drive.
The 39-member committee is chaired by a former member of the state House of Assembly, Hon. Matthew Iduoriyekemwen.
The state chairman of the party, Barr. Anselm Ojezua, who inaugurated the committee at the party secretariat, charged the committee to embark on a serious membership drive.
He named terms of reference for the committee to include “serious membership drive, to identify and interact with notable persons across the state who has shown genuine interest to join our party, and to develop a program of action to receive them at all levels of engagements from the ward to the state level.”
Ojezua said: “Today, we are inaugurating one of the most important committees any political party would have because it has to do with mobilization which is synonymous with a membership drive. And in doing this, we have carefully and in consultation with the leadership of the party identified people; men and women that we know have the capacity, the goodwill to get the job done. And that is why the responsibilities have fallen on those we have just called.
“You are expected to work closely with the party leadership at the state, local government and ward levels. They will be the ones to partner with you and guide you in the course of your work.
“You know as well as I do that quite a number of people have indicated interest to join our party; some for good and some for not so good.
“Your work is to also use your means to do some level of screening and therefore make some recommendations that will be for the good of our party.
“Our party is not a secret society, everything we do is transparent and therefore this process is also transparent.
“We have set up this committee in the open and they will work from bottom-up because as they say politics is local.
“We do not accept that membership drive for Edo people to join a party in Edo should be done outside Edo by people of questionable status within our party and that is the reason why we say this one is different.”
The Edo APC chairman noted that “there is a clear difference between membership drive and an invitation of a mercenary group to come and do a hostile take over of the party as if this structure that we have put in place is not a superstructure.”
He, however, said that by the time the commit successfully finishes its assignment, Nigerians will know APC in Edo is as strong as can ever be.
He added that “no sinister group, no matter how highly placed, can change the situation as far as Edo state is concerned.”
In his acceptance speech, the chairman of the Committee, Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, thank the party leadership for finding them worthy of the assignment.
He promised that the committee “will ensure that people of good character who will lead the party to the next level are brought to the party.”