CRISIS BREWS IN APC •LOGO/MERGER COMMITTEE MEETING DEADLOCKED

…It’s nothing serious -Lai Mohammed

The meeting of the merger committees of the parties that announced the formation of All Progressives Congress (APC) ended in a deadlock yesterday in Abuja. Chieftains of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), at the meeting called for caution, as they noted that the symbol of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) should not be reflected in the logo of APC against the background of denials from the national executive of the party that APGA was not a party to the merger deal. Certain chieftains of APGA stormed out of the meeting as it could not be resolved.

Daily Sun sighted Senator Annie Okonkwo at the meeting. But speaking with newsmen after the closed-door session, National Publicity Secretary of ACN, Chief Lai Mohammed, denied that the meeting ended in a deadlock, but admitted that the merger committees were wary of reflecting the APGA logo in the APC logo. “When you are having this type of meetings, of course, you are going to have different views.

We appreciate the fact that APGA is today factionalised. We thought it would not be proper for us to take any of the symbols of APGA into the APC’s logo which they accepted. “Their only point is that they be allowed to report back to their leaders and tell them that APGA’s symbol would not be in the new APC logo because the moment we do that, they will take us to court. That is why we have now postponed the announcement of the logo until a time that they have had their own consultation,” Mohammed said.

The ACN scribe further dismissed the reaction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur that individual ambitions of gladiators behind the APC would truncate their professed intention of dislodging PDP. Mohammed’s remarks:” If PDP is waiting that the issue of individual ambition is going to divide APC, I think they are mistaken. What I have seen in all our deliberations throughout today is the extent at which people are ready to make sacrifices. How people are ready to bend backwards to ensure that this merger works.

This merger isn’t about ACN, ANPP, CPC and APGA but the whole of Nigeria and I can assure you that the whole of Nigeria is waiting with bated breath as to the outcome of the merger.” Mohammed said that the merger committees agreed to convey to the national leaderships of the ACN, ANPP and CPC, the need to hold special conventions of the respective parties involved in the merger deal for ratification of individual political parties’ decision to dissolve into APC. The merger committes also constituted three committees: Constitution, Manifesto and Strategy.

Source: Sun