The All Progressives Congress (APC) has distanced itself from the leadership crisis rocking the African Democratic Congress (ADC), insisting that the recent derecognition of some of its leaders by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was the result of internal missteps.
INEC had earlier removed David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola from its records as national chairman and national secretary of the ADC, respectively, a development that has sparked political debate.
Reacting on Thursday, APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, dismissed suggestions that the ruling party influenced the electoral body’s decision, describing the situation as self-inflicted by the opposition.
“As I’ve always maintained, we are only concerned about our level of preparation and the effort we are making. We’re concerned about ourselves. It is the opposition that is obsessed about what APC does,” Morka said during an appearance on News Central.
He maintained that the APC played no role in the internal wrangling within the ADC, which culminated in INEC’s action.
“Even the most recent development that everyone is talking about, the INEC decision to derecognize the David Mark executive, that was utterly self-inflicted. APC didn’t do that. APC did not orchestrate the hijack of the ADC by that executive, we didn’t,” he stated.
Morka further attributed the crisis to what he described as a disregard for due process and the party’s constitutional provisions by the affected leadership.
“They did that, completely ignoring the rule of law, ignoring the constitution of the party they were putting themselves into. The party had a constitution about succession. So when you parachute into the party, you take over without reference to the constitutional stipulation about succession on how leadership is ordered in that party, this is the consequence,” he said.
The APC spokesman insisted that those criticising the ruling party over the development were responsible for creating the crisis in the first place.
“This was exactly made, manufactured by the same people who are complaining now and pointing fingers at the APC. We’re not concerned about all of that,” Morka added.