The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has backed the position of the party’s former interim National Chairman, Bisi Akande on the Caretaker Committee and the ongoing national registration and revalidation exercise.
The former governor of Osun State had described the ongoing membership registration and revalidation in the party as ”an indefensible aberration leading to certain ugly perceptions.”
Akande also berated the Caretaker Executive Committee constituted by President Muhammadu Buhari last year, saying most “aberrant authorities” always end up in contempt and disgrace.
The APC leader asserted that his perception about the registration and revalidation by the APC leadership is that of waste.
He maintained that no population census is repeated within less than a decade, saying that voters are not re-registered at every election.
“These seeming ugly perceptions put into abeyance the applause of the two national election successes that the original APC register enjoyed since its completion on 15th February 2014 and the over one billion Naira of 2014’s value that the original register cost when APC had no money of its own.
“Within this context, I see the present APC membership registration within less than a decade after the original register as an indefensible aberration leading to certain ugly perceptions.
Akande urged that the present APC Caretaker Executive Committee to resist all temptations of “sit-tight syndromes” which according to him, usually characterized “most handpicked authorities in most underdeveloped countries of the world.”
However, while addressing journalists on Saturday at his Ikoyi residence in Lagos, Tinubu said he would not fault Akande’s position but will endorse it.
He backed Akande’s position after being registered on Saturday.
He said: “Since we have a foundation and that foundation is on which the structure up till the present was built at the time of the registration of this party, I will not fault Baba Akande’s position; I will not but endorse it.”
“What we are doing now is a matter of addition and subtraction, free entry and free exit. You have joined a particular party; you have decided to leave that party. You have equal opportunity for new members to join and update the existing register of the party.”
The APC national leader said he had not heard a situation whereby the party’s register submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the time of APC registration has been invalidated.
He described the party’s exercise as an update and revalidation of all those memberships, adding that despite the APC witnessing several congresses and exits, it had complied with the nation’s Electoral Act.
