APC Youth Movement Backs Buni, Akpanudoedehe Led Caretaker C’ttee

By Zakaa Lazarus

The Chairman, Progressives Youth movement, Prince Mustapha Audu, Thursday said the youth movement of the party has thrown it’s weight behind Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni led Caretaker Committee.

Audu  made the declaration at the party headquarters in Abuja said the movement is in support of the decision of President Muhammad Buhari.

“We are the Progressives Youth movement, the largest youth support group of the All Progressives Congress.

“We are here because there has been various media report regarding the purported sack of the secretary of the party, Sen. James John Akpanudohede. We are here to say that the purported sack can not stand and we are in support of our chairman, his exellency Mai Mala Buni, we are in support of the secretary, Senator James John Akpanudohede and we are in support of Mr President 1000%. Anyone bringing any issue at this critical point is clearly an enemy of the APC, is trying to create confusion”. Prince Audu noted.

“Nine days to the national convention of the party, all hands should be on deck. We saw the letter this morning by our national youth leader, Barr. Ishmeel Ahmed, we believe we should be working hand in hand to deliver for the party and the convention.

“There is no need fighting each other at this stage, all we need is to support the party and chairman to carry out the convention. We are ten million members of this support group and we wholeheartedly in support of Mr President, the caretaker committee chairman and the secretary.

While responding to question from journalist Prince Audu  agreed that the Youths were initially  against the party’s chairman because of the lack of youth inclusion.

” You were all aware that the leadership of the party called us and we had a reconciliatory meeting. Since then I can report to you that we have been carried along in all decisions of the party.

“Young people have been encouraged to participate in the affairs of the party. At least 15 people have purchased forms at the zonal convention and several others to vie for NWC positions. At least  30 members of our support group have been included in the convention planning sub committees.

” Everything we asked for as young people we have been given. So, we don’t want the situation where young people will be seen as causing problems for the party. We are politicians not activists. We reiterate our support for the party, and our convention is 26 March and our concern is how we are going to support the leadership of the party in the next nine days to deliver the convention”, he added.

Meanwhile Princess Zahra Audu on her part said the  Sani Bello caretaker Committee was received proper hand over note from Buni. Sani Bello took some decisions on behalf of the Buni on sub- committees appointments and some of those committees have been nullified.

“I think it is important to note that before his excellency Mai Mala Buni left, there were committees that were setup  as we all know as  substantial Caretaker Committee and there was no reason to desolve the setup, so automatically it is also to understand that if the chairman, the secretary of the party names were omitted from the list of course we must rectify because INEC has said it; we cannot have a convention without a substantial secretary, of course it has not make any sense to have a list that exclude the two most important members of the Caretaker extraordinary convention planning Committee, it doesn’t make any sense. So it make sense to them to come back and do the the list in correct way.

“We have legal way of removing any body from a committee  and I think only the NEC has the authority to do that. I don’t believe a committee that was set up has the authority to sack a member of that committee that was set up by NEC, especially a member who is superior in position. I think that is absolutely impossible but we would leave that for the legal team to look into that.

“APC as a party is very important to come together as a party and allow the law. INEC has received all letters and notifications from the chairman and the Caretaker secretary, the president has also sent a letter with clear directives we should return to status quo immediately and we should stop all the internal rancour and all the internal issues.

“To be honest with you we are all politicians, we all have different interests. We need to put the interest on Nigerian people, the interest of Mr president and the interest of the APC above all our personal interests.

“We must have our convention and after the convention we can come back to being politicians but for now we must think about the APC, we must think about our the party not our personal interests,” she noted.

When asked on the cost of interest forms, Princess Zahra said “to be honest with you I think we are coming late into the game, the reason why I’m saying this is; we only have six to seven days to the convention. We had a youth representative who was part of all the meetings, the youth representatives should have communicated to us earlier as young stakeholders. if he had done we could have carry that along. We assume that the status quo interms of party nomination for all not just for young people. But to our surprise all these meetings were privy to us. Infact this nomination was released under his direct watch when he told us that he has become the spokesperson of the party which is very shocking because he has the ample time to notify us before that information went out to the press.

“We still have issue with our secretary who has said he would take it to the national chairman but I think to be honest with you as young people, we need to have our eyes on the ball, we need to support one another, we need to be serious about things. We would do our best to try and make sure that we are not eliminated and we  will also hope that may they can still be dealt with”, she added