The All Progressives Congress Youth Development and Solidarity Forum has rejected the proposed February 26, 2022 date for the party’s national convention.
The group said the ruling party could potentially disintegrate should it proceed with the convention.
On Wednesday, the APC in a statement announced that its national convention will hold on February 26, adding that the date was arrived at after consultation among major stakeholders of the party.
However, rejecting the proposed date for the convention, the APC youth group stated that move was initiated by some elements trying to distabilise the party.
Secretary-General of the group, Tobias Ogbeh, said that some party faithful had been working with foreign agents to destabilise the APC ahead of the planned convention.
He noted that detractors were planning to run a parallel secretariat and institute legal cases against the party to ensure that it doesn’t produce any candidate in the 2023 presidential election.
Ogbeh added that if not properly managed, this could ultimately lead to mass exodus of party members over unresolved and lingering legal issues.
A statement by the group reads, “The recent events regarding the date fixed for the party’s national convention gives a cause for concern in the sense that if things are not handled properly, we stand the risk of the party disintegrating before the general elections.
“Based on a security report, we have it on good authority that a segment of our party members have been working with foreign agents to destabilise the party at the party convention. They have perfected plans to run a parallel secretariat of the party to institute legal cases against to ensure that it doesn’t produce any candidate in 2023.
“This is chiefly being coordinated by some governors who recently joined the party from the South-South region, another from one of the North-Central states and another from the North-West. They are working together with foreign mercenaries to cause internal implosion within the party.
“We also have it on good authority that these elements have also perfected plans to use the instrument of the court to disrupt the party activities by sponsoring frivolous court cases against the party with regards to the outcome of the convention.
“Sadly, these elements that do not mean well for the party are being accorded tremendous patronage at the federal level, not knowing that these same individuals are planning to rock the party’s boat by all means necessary.
“The leadership and members of the APC Youth Development and Solidarity Forum is alarmed with the turn of events in our great party as the elections approach. The signs that all won’t be well with the party are apparent, and our leaders have elected to put their interest first before that of the party.
“They have forgotten that the opposition party is consolidating and putting in measures to stage a dramatic return to power as we have it on good authority of plans, also to infiltrate our party with moles who in turn feeds them with our strategies towards the elections.
“We wish to state boldly that the overarching objective is for a mass exodus of party members from the party due to unresolved and lingering legal issues. So much so that it would deny party members and candidates the time to fulfil the INEC stipulated requirements.
“As concerned stakeholders in the party, we wish to state that all is indeed not well and should the party elect to go ahead with the planned national convention of February 26, 2022, that would undoubtedly mark the journey of the disintegration of the party.
“We wish to warn the leadership of the party to see this threat as real and do all within its means to avert the looming crisis in the party by looking for an alternate date for the party convention to save the party from being hijacked by some vested interest that does not wish the party well.
“As a result of these, we call on the party leadership to act now in the best interest of the party and the country at large.”
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the APC had been enmeshed in various crisis with fears rising that this could jeorpadise the chances of the party to retain power at the centre next year.
Recently, some aggrieved members of the APC dragged the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee before a Federal High Court in Abuja over plans to hold a national convention in February.
The applicants prayed the court to restrain the committee from going ahead with the convention because state congresses were yet to be completed in all 36 states of the federation.
In a bid to put out the raging fire within the party, state governors elected on the platform of the APC held an emergency meeting in Abuja earlier this month to discuss issues surrounding the national convention and grievances of members calling for its postponement.
Worried that the internal wranglings within the APC could cause bigger problems, President Muhammadu Buhari last week said that the party risked losing control of power at the national level in Nigeria if it failed to resolve all crisis within its fold.
