Youths of the All Progressives Congress (APC) vowed yesterday to resist any attempt to smuggle any form of illegality into the party’s constitution.
They said the National Executive Committee of the party has no power to elongate the tenure of the leadership of the party.
The youth also frowned at a situation where youths who were supposed to be part of the advisory committee of the party at various levels are being removed after the party rode on their back to power.
Addressing newsmen after a closed door meeting of Forum of Young Stakeholders of party in Abuja, their spokesman, Mathias Obekpa said the youths have resolved to ask the leadership of the party to tread with caution as only the national convention has power to elongate the tenure of anybody.
He said: “ We are still meeting and the general thing that can be taken from this tenure elongation is that the youths stand with what our constitution says.
“We do not want illegality in this party. We want to stand by all what we have worked and voted for in this constitution. Sneaking in any illegality will not be acceptable to the youths.
“Our consultation is continuing because it is not just a small fragment of the youths of this party that have met. Our consultation is wide and is across the nation and we have agreed to call a congress of the youths to state our position because this party must survive since we brought it into power with our votes.
“By our party constitution, the power for tenure elongation does not rest with the NEC. The power rests in the convention and the party belongs to everybody.”
Obekpa said the forum is not happy that young men and women that were supposed to be in advisory committees at all levels in the party are being removed and are not being carried along in the day to day running of the party and the government.
While expressing support for President Muhammadu Buhari, said the forum “look forward to supporting him (President Buhari) beyond 2019.”
Speaking before the commencement of the meeting, the convener and member of the APC Board of Trustee (BOT), Barr. Ismail Ahmed, said the youths have not been fully integrated into the ruling party despite the role they played in its formation and the success achieved in the 2015 general elections.
Ahmed said members were not happy because of the failure to convene stakeholders’ meetings after the electoral victory where critical issues would have been addressed before the inauguration of the government, adding that such failure led to the situation led to the situation where the party could not decide on who leads the National Assembly.
“There was no decision to extend tenure. A motion was passed indicating a preference that tenure be extended but there was the realization that the constitution does not permit it and therefore there needed to be a further action taken on it. No decision was taken to extend tenure of the executives.
“Time is still ticking. Very soon the tenure of the executive will soon expire.
“ The party will have to do something quickly to address the issue because as it is currently constituted, when the tenure expires then it is dead. NEC did not extend tenure.
“It only passed a motion in favour of tenure extension subject to the constitution which at the moment did not permit it.
“The party chairmen supported it because they are also beneficiaries of the constitution. The party is subject to its own rules. There was no argument at all at the meetings. There is need for us to work on the constitution prior to taken the decision of tenure extension.”
When asked if he would support amendment of the party’s constitution for tenure elongation, he said: “when we presented ourselves for office, we knew it was for four years.
”I also have an opportunity to present myself for another tenure should it be the wish of delegates at the congress and that is the position I will take.”
Meanwhile, the All Progressive Congress in Edo State is disputing alleged approval of tenure extension for the National Working Committee of the party by the National Executive Committee (NEC).
It says no such decision was reached by the party’s NEC.
State Chairman of the party, Barr. Anselm Ojezua, told reporters in Benin City yesterday that a motion was merely moved to extend the tenure of Chief Oyegun and others but the NEC was reminded about the provisions of the party’s constitution.
Bar. Ojezua emphasized that no decision on tenure elongation was reached by NEC,arguing that state chairmen of the party supported it because they stood to benefit.
Ojezua warned that the party must now act fast because the tenure of the party executives would soon expire.
He said: “there must be a misconception as to what decision the National Executive Committee of the APC made. There was a motion put before NEC proposing the extension of tenure for a number of reasons but our attention was also drawn to the constitution of the party that it does not contain any provision for extension of and that should it be that there was extension, something has to be done to satisfy the constitutional provision.”
