Crisis
erupted in the Congress for Progressive Change yesterday when factional state
chairmen announced the expulsion of national chairman Prince Tony Momoh and
secretary Buba Galadima over alleged inexperienced, high handedness and
corruption.
The
chairmen met in Abuja at a location near the national headquarters of the CPC,
where they also dissolved the national executive committee and expelled former
board of trustees member Sule Yahaya Hamma and Alhaji Mustapha Salihu.
But spokesman for
the party Rotimi Fashakin dismissed the expulsions, saying they were instigated
by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and executed by people who were
paid N100,000 each to destabilise the CPC.
The committee of
chairmen of state chapters of the CPC, in a statement at the end of a week-long
series of meetings in Abuja, passed a vote of no confidence in the Momoh-led
national executive.
The statement was
jointly signed by 31 members and presented to journalists by the Enugu state
chapter chairmanBarrister Emeka Okafor.
The chairmen
accused the Momoh-led exco of being responsible for the party’s poor outing in
the 2011 elections. They claimed that party leader General Muhammadu Buhari
would be happy with the decision to oust the national leaders.
“A vote of total
loss of confidence in the management committee and the National Executive
Committee of the party is hereby unanimously passed on them. Gen. Buhari will
have a sound sleep today, they have carpeted him, regionalised the party and
created a gap between Gen. Buhari and the people,” Okafor said.
He accused Galadima
of sabotaging the party’s effort to unseat the PDP. “Galadima will speak on
behalf of the CPC during the day on the BBC and other media and later go to Aso
Rock Villa in the evening. He was at Aso Rock even on the presidential election
day,” he said.
Asked about the
legality of their action, Okafor said that the same committee in January 2010
elected the NEC, and it has two-thirds majority to legitimise its actions.
He said all party
members previously suspended or expelled have been pardoned and recalled into
the party, and that all caretaker committees appointed by Galadima in some
states were dissolved.
But Okafor said the
Nasir El-Rufai-led renewal committee should proceed with its job and move fast
in holding alliance/merger talks with other opposition parties.
Those at the
meeting include Shehu Yahaya (Zamfara), Zannah Shettima (Borno), Nasir Ahmad
(Jigawa), Victor Anyanwu (Imo), Shehu Barau Ningi (Bauchi), Shehu Nafuntua
(Niger), Abdulkadir Hafatu (Zamfara), Musa Haruna Gama (Kano), Charles Okoh
(Ebonyi), Peter Eloma (Abia), Chuna Ikeagwu (Anambra), Muhammed Lawal El-Yakub
(Nasarawa), Meke Nwoloh (Rivers) and Edward Ofomota (Delta).
Others were Senator
Ahmad Sani Stores who was removed from the Senate after a Supreme Court ruling,
Chief Ako Atuloman from Abia, Auwal Salihu from Bauchi and Muhammed Tukur Sada,
who lost his Katsina House of Representatives seat to a court judgement.
On Tuesday, CPC
spokesman Fashakin had said the PDP was planning to cause disaffection and
confusion in the CPC.
In his reaction
yesterday, he told Daily Trust: “This is not surprising at all. Precisely two
days ago, we alerted the whole nation about this move by the PDP. The PDP-led
Federal Government is providing all the logistics for this infamy.
“It is indeed our
season of anomie. There is nothing to worry about their actions that have no
authority under our party’s constitution. Where did that assembly derive its
power to sack a constituted executive committee?”
He said the plot by
PDP was to use a renegade CPC group led by former national chairman Rufai Hanga
to spark crisis in the party.
But Hanga’s aide,
Mr. Dennis Aghanya, told Daily Trust yesterday that Hanga was not part of the
meeting of yesterday though he was aware of it. “The pro tem state chairmen
under the national leadership of Senator Hanga pro tem NEC are meeting in Abuja
on their own initiative to chart the way forward for the party,” Aghanya, a
former spokesman for CPC, said.