Cross River: APC Cheiftains Call For Equal Treatment Of All Members, Says Etta Can’t Be Sidelined

Some aggrieved members of the Cross River State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have cried out over unequal treatment in the party.

According to them, they have been excluded from receiving any position in the APC ever since the state governor, Ben Ayade defected to the party from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last year.

They decried that sidelining and non-appointment of older members into significant positions was not good for the health of the Party and upcoming campaigns.

Naija News gathered that the aggrieved member of the Cross River APC have bemoaned non-inclusion in the party since last year, saying defectors who came with the governor to the APC have been dominant in the party ever since they joined.

The party chieftains, therefore, called on the leadership of the APC in the state to bring both the old and the new into the same fold.

More to their agitations is the alleged sidelining of the former national vice chairman of the party for south-south, Ntufam Hilliard Etta.

Naija News learnt that some of the aggrieved members, who were identified as the former state vice chairman for Cross River central, Chief Cletus Obun and Prof Enoh told pressmen in Calabar, the state capital, that the exclusion of Etta and other party leaders was worrisome.

They maintained that Eta cannot be the contact person of the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu in the state and be sidelined and kept in the dark about the party’s election matters in the state.

They revealed that the “highly fragmented” APC in the state became obvious during the Thank You Tour in the state, noting that during the tour there was an “overwhelming preponderance of the old over new APC members.”

The aggrieved party chieftains observed that “We want to express our fears over inactivity after the tour and the likelihood of plunging into electioneering campaigns with no old members.

“The feeling of old members of the Party is that they have been kept in the dark. Membership of the Central Planning Committee still has the same slant.”

Enoh questioned that hitherto the coming of new members, the party had men and women who held the forte and necessarily needed “to be made active at every stage of our activities going forward.

“To think that such important names should only function at their respective Chapter levels is to grossly undermine their past contributions and sacrifices to the party. Always, it is said- the more the merrier.”