APC Committed To Peaceful, Credible LG Congresses

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The All Progressives Congress (APC) has restated its commitment to peaceful and credible local government party congresses in Ebonyi.

The state Chairman of APC, Chief Eze Nwachukwu, gave the assurance at the party secretariat on Saturday in Abakaliki while briefing newsmen.

He spoke on the preparedness of the party for the successful conduct of the congresses.

APC holds its local government congresses across the 774 councils and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

He said that the party had concluded arrangements for the smooth and peaceful conduct of the exercise holding across the state on May 12.

“Every arrangement is in place for the local government congresses of our great party, APC.

“Forms have been sold to the contestants and it was done without bias, the congresses committee from the National Secretariat, Abuja, are here for the exercise.

“The Police, Department of State Security, other relevant security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission have been duly informed.

“Venues for the congresses at the various local government areas have been communicated and party members have been sensitised and well mobilised to participate in the congresses.

“We have also made adequate security arrangements to protect lives and congress materials.

“We are expecting nothing but peaceful, credible and hitch-free exercise in all 13 local government areas of the state.

“We are going to repeat our success story in the just concluded ward congresses in the local government congresses,” Nwachukwu said.

He promised that the exercise would be open, peaceful and devoid of manipulation.

He called for support and cooperation of members to make the exercise hitch-free, noting that the Ebonyi wards congresses were adjudged the best throughout the federation.

“We have gone a long way in harmonisation to avoid frictions and rancour, and virtually all the local government areas have harmonised their lists ahead of today’s exercise.

“The stakeholders on their own came together in their respective local governments and zoned positions towards, while some local governments peacefully conducted ‘mock’ congresses to choose their consensus candidates.

“Our congresses today will be more of affirmative congresses because we have laid a foundation of peace, harmony and understanding of one another,” he added.

Nwachukwu said that APC was committed to take over power from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, adding that the party is working hard to achieve the objective.

“Our success in the ongoing party congresses puts us a few miles away from achieving our target of taking over power from the ruling PDP in 2019.

“We have put aside individual differences and collectively will work for the overall success of the exercise,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the electoral committee, Chief Nicolas Ajayi, has assured readiness of the committee to conduct credible, peaceful and transparent exercise in the state.

Ajayi told newsmen that the committee’s mandate was to ensure that the congresses in the state were peaceful, credible and that no qualified aspirant was denied right to contest.

He urged leaders, stakeholders and contestants to adopt consensus mechanism enshrined in the party’s constitution in choosing their candidates to reduce tension and friction.

“We have one mandate and the mandate is to ensure that the congresses in the 13 local government areas of Ebonyi are conducted freely and that winners emerge through credible and popular means.

“We appeal to party leaders, stakeholders and contestants to make the exercise easy for us by adopting consensus method to choose candidates.

“We will, however, move to local governments where consensus fails to conduct congresses for qualified aspirants,” Ajayi said.