The All Progressives Congress (APC) national secretariat in Abuja has been taken over by heavily armed policemen, Wednesday.
The policemen arrived the secretariat in Toyota Hillux vans and mounted strategic positions around the secretariat.
According to media reports, the policemen stormed the premises sequel to information that some protesters were planning to converge there.
Some party members were said to have planned to stage a protest against the Governor Mai Mala led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
Stakeholders of ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) had recently tackled the Buni-led CECPC over its handling of the party, saying the committee cannot save APC from its woes.
The stakeholders asked the committee to resign duties stating that they are interventionist and ad-hoc, yet acting like a statutory National Working Committee, (NWC). They demanded the immediate dissolution of the CECPC. According to the stakeholders, there is a need to urgently convene a national convention and put in place an all-inclusive and substantive NWC.
At a news conference in Abuja, a spokesperson of the stakeholders, Ayo Oyalowo, also faulted the party leadership for barring aggrieved members from accessing the party secretariat.
“When we concluded that the practices within the party run contrary to the progressive image and credentials of the APC, we raised our voices because we do not want to go down in history as one of those whose silent complicity brought the APC to where it is headed.
“We spoke out with the full expectation that we could lend our support to genuine efforts aimed at effecting the corrective measures needed by our party, as it was adopting practically all abnormal political practices as a norm.
“However, instead of seeing reasons with our concerns and heeding to the call for a return of the party to its core foundational principles and progressive ideologies, we are appalled that all the current party leadership did was to declare us persona non grata and put orders in place banning us from accessing the party secretariat.
“Apart from the clear instructions issued to the leadership of the APC Press Corps not to allow our group the use of the press center, we are knowledgeable about a memo issued to all departments in the party headquarters directing all department heads not to allow us entry or the use of any facility within the secretariat complex.
“These actions are indeed a sign of the regression in the APC that we spoke about, for we believe that no true progressive party would deny members any right or privilege on account of expressing a contrary but valid position. We waited this long before speaking out about the sad development because we did not want to be distracted from our objectives.
“Our objectives remain to preserve the sanctity of this party for the benefit of all its members, high or low, young or old, male or female. Let it be known that we shall remain firm on this resolve no matter the extent of threat or intimidation we may encounter,” he stated.
