The unending confusion in the Benue State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has thrown aspirants in the party keen on contesting the October 5 Local government elections in the state into a quandary.
Comrade Austin Agada
With the party bifurcated into factions loyal to the Secretary to Government of the Federation ( SGF), Sen. George Akume, and the State governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, interested aspirants are confused about which side of the divide to belong to consummate their political aspiration.
Both the Austin Agada-led EXCO, which is loyal to the SGF and the Benjamin Omakolo-led group, loyal to Governor Alia announced the sale of the nomination forms and expression of interest forms to aspirants.
The forms were not cheap. While the Austin Agada-led EXCO sold their chairmanship forms for N300,000, and Councillorship forms for N150,000, the Omaloko faction put their chairmanship forms at N5M and the Councillorship forms at N500,000
With the parallel sale of the forms commencing in the two places, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the APC National chairman announced the dissolution of the Austin Agada-led state EXCO and the appointment of a Caretaker Committee headed by Chief Benjamin Omale to take charge of the affairs of the party.
The Austin Agada-led EXCO dragged Dr Ganduje to court for flouting the ex-parte order restraining the NWC from dissolving the Benue APC EXCO and went ahead to conduct its primaries and nominate 23 chairmanship and 276 councillorship candidates.
Thereafter, the Unity Caretaker Committee commenced the sale of nomination and expression of interest forms to aspirants with chairmanship aspirants coughing out about N5.7m, made up of N5m for the forms, and N750,000 for statutory party dues, development levies, and handling charges.
With the Austin Agada faction in court challenging the legality of the dissolution of its EXCO, which was elected for 4-year tenure, the fate of the aspirants on both sides hangs in the balance.
A political commentator, Mr. Ade Otor opined that if the courts decide for the Agada-led EXCO, it will mean that its candidates will be recognized as the authentic candidates of the party for the local government elections.
However, if the Austin Agada-led EXCO loses in court, all its candidates would lose, while those in the Omakolo faction, which has aligned with the Unity Caretaker Committee shall be the winners
He recalls that in Plateau State, all actions, processes, and decisions superintended by an illegitimate PDP state EXCO were voided “de Novo”
Due to the failure to resolve the crisis in the party, the conduct of the local government election has suffered a series of postponements and even changes in the leadership of the electoral umpire, the Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC).
The Commission had at a stakeholders meeting on April 8, announced the timetable for the elections, and fixed July 6 as the date to hold it.
However, when it dawned on the government that a factionalized party, holding the local government elections would be playing into the hands of the opposition parties, the elections were postponed till November 16.
Due to the Supreme Court ruling declaring caretaker committees illegal, the Commission changed the date of the election from November 16 date to October 5. The chairman of the Commission, Dr. John Chen, who announced the change was however removed in controversial circumstances and a new chairman, Terlumun Tombowua appointed.
Without resolving the crisis, the two factions began the sale of nomination and expression of Interest forms at two different places to a confused party followership resulting in the present uncertainty in the party.
The impasse and uncertainty in the APC have suddenly energized the PDP and other opposition parties in the state, with some aspirants coming in there to pick nomination forms for the long-awaited poll.