By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
As the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) continues with its ongoing registration and revalidation of its members, many chieftains of the party have continued to speak out against the exercise even as they ended up complying.
First to poo-pooh the exercise was the former Governor of Osun State and pioneer National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, who also faulted the creation of the party’s caretaker and extra-ordinary convention planning committees.
Akande, who said the original register was the foundational structure that galvanised the movement which pushed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) out of power, and twice installed the Muhammadu Buhari administration, said, “I see the present APC membership registration within less than a decade after the original register as an indefensible aberration leading to certain ugly perceptions.”
His political soul mate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and APC National Leader, also canvassed the same opinion.
Speaking after revalidating his own membership of the party last Saturday, Tinubu said: “Since we have a foundation and that foundation is on which the structure up till the present was built at the time of the registration of this party, I will not fault Baba Akande’s position. I will not but endorse it.”
Speaking in the same vein on Tuesday, Adams Oshiomhole, former national chairman of the APC, said the ongoing membership revalidation exercise was against the ruling party’s constitution.
Speaking after his participation in the exercise at his ward in Edo state, Oshiomhole described the revalidation process as strange.
The former governor of Edo state noted that the APC is governed by a constitution, which does not provide for a person to revalidate or renew membership.
“APC is governed by a constitution and not by man. The constitution only provides for registration and I registered as a member of the APC in 2014 under the interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande,” Oshiomhole said.
“There is nothing in the APC constitution that says a member shall revalidate or renew his membership. Once you registered when you joined the party and you have not decamped, you are a member. So, revalidation is strange to our constitution.
“I have only done this because I want peace to reign, but in doing this, we have to be careful not to create constitutional breach. If you ask me as a foundation member, who has never decamped, to revalidate my membership, it is double registration because there is nothing like revalidation in our constitution.
“Asking me to revalidate my membership means I was not a member. So, I think the correct language should be either reviewing or updating, because it makes sense to review the voters’ register due to the new members that have joined or those that have exited. So, what this means now is that I have come here to do another registration, but I insist that my registration never expired within the provision of the APC constitution.
“History didn’t just begin today. If we don’t have a valid register, how did we conduct the congress in 2015 in which 16 million registered APC members voted to nominate President Muhammadu Buhari before the general election?”