The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the removal of African Democratic Congress (ADC) leaders, Senator David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a problem caused by the opposition itself.
Speaking on News Central on Thursday, APC National Publicity Secretary Felix Morka rejected claims that the ruling party influenced the development, insisting the opposition was responsible for its own challenges.
“As I’ve always maintained, we are only concerned about our level of preparation and the effort we are making. We’re concerned about ourselves. It is the opposition that is obsessed about what APC does,” Morka said.
He stressed that the APC played no role in the internal crisis within the ADC that led to INEC’s action.
“Even the most recent development that everyone is talking about, the INEC decision to derecognize the David Mark executive, that was utterly self-inflicted. APC didn’t do that. APC did not orchestrate the hijack of the ADC by that executive, we didn’t,” he stated.
Morka attributed the situation to what he described as a disregard for the party’s constitution by the affected leadership.
“They did that, completely ignoring the rule of law, ignoring the constitution of the party they were putting themselves into. The party had a constitution about succession. So when you parachute into the party, you take over without reference to the constitutional stipulation about succession on how leadership is ordered in that party, this is the consequence,” he said.
He maintained that those criticising the APC were responsible for the crisis.
“This was exactly made, manufactured by the same people who are complaining now and pointing fingers at the APC. We’re not concerned about all of that,” Morka added.
INEC had earlier removed the names of Mark and Aregbesola from its portal as national chairman and national secretary of the ADC.
