The former governor of Ebonyi state, Chief Martin Elechi Thursday called on Governor David Umahi to correct what he described as the malaise of 2019 primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He pointed out that many chieftains of the party are not happy with the party as the result of the occurrences.
While he commended Umahi for boldly defecting to APC, he encouraged Umahi to make moves to resolve the problem with aggrieved members.
Elechi decried the inability of political parties to adhere to constitutions which according to him “is the reason why political parties fail “.
He said, “One area we fail drastically is our failure to respect the constitution of political parties. I was the executive Secretary of political parties when we were in the old Anambra state and that time the format was a bit different. The Chief of the party in the state was the Secretary not the Chairman and that was why we were called Executive Secretaries. And we use the provisions of the constitution in nearly everything we did.
“But I can say that in this fourth Republic, the major problem of parties is the failure to respect and comply with the provisions of the political party constitutions. When I left the party after handing over in 2015, it was for no other reason but the flagrant disrespect from abuse of the party constitution. Coming to the APC, I thought things will be different. When we go back to look at the areas of the principal officers of the party in 2019 elections, I weep for the country, that still pains me. We have no regard for the party constitution; we do things as dictated by our appetite but not by the requirements of the party’s constitution.
“So, based on this observation, I am suggesting that there should be a small committee to examine what I consider to be the malaise of the APC in Ebonyi state today as a result of the way we mishandled the elections of 2019. Truly, we are happy that we are now the ruling party but I can tell you frankly that many people are in grief as result of the way they were treated; the ward primaries, the state primaries, they did not respect the constitution of the party and after the primaries those who were declared the winner were not in all places the final candidates, why was that?
“In the primaries of the same party that has no conflict with anyone other party but within thesame party conducting its primaries people lost their lives. What have we done to appeal the grieving relations of these dead people, so many things went wrong”. He said.
Umahi in his response asked the caretaker committee chairman of APC, Mr Stanley Emegha to set up a committee to look into the complaints
“We can ask the caretaker working committee chairman to look into the complains of both the PDP , APC , all the people that were disenfranchised in 2019 elections and all the families that lost their loved ones. They can interface with them and then come up with reports which we can consider in our stakeholders meeting.
“What I also want to plead is to ask for forgiveness, I will add my voice at the center, because if the center in all the political parties had determine to do things right there is no way the states can do otherwise, most things always emanate from the center”.
