Constitution amendment, true federalism report tops APC NEC meeting – Bolaji

The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Bolaji Abdullah, has said that constitution amendment and True Federalism report tops the agenda of the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting coming up today at the party National Secretariat in Abuja.

Speaking to journalists at the party secretariat, Abdullahi said: “We have the National Executive Committee meeting coming up tomorrow at about 11am.

It is going to be a routine NEC meeting and a final leg of the meeting that was held last month when I told you that two issues were outstanding and that members asked for more time to study those issues.

These are the issues of constitution amendment and the True Federalism committee report. These are the two key items on the agenda for tomorrow (today’s) NEC meeting.

He said according to the calendar of the party, the national convention will hold in June and a committee will soon be set up to that effect.

Abdullahi said, “If you look at the calendar that was circulated during the last meeting, we are going to have a convention by June and a committee will be set up to that effect.

“The purpose of bringing the issue of constitution amendment to the NEC is to allow members who have issues to raise and opinion to canvass or perspective to share will have opportunity to do so before the final draft is adopted by NEC.

Once the final draft is adopted by NEC, you still have the convention which has the final authority to adopt the amendments. All these are being created to give the various constituencies within the party the opportunity to air their views and their positions”.

Abdullahi also said that the APC is a party that has a lot of regard for its younger members, saying that, “We believe we should provide an opportunity for them.

They are very smart young people and so, if they have observations that the proposed amendment is not sufficiently taking care of their interest, definitely, such observations will be taken into consideration.

“As a matter of principle, we will not be surprised because it is politics and you should expect that in every political environment, you should have such contentions. To that extent, we are not surprised, but what will be slightly surprising is that after the highest organ of the party outside the convention has taken a position”.

He regretted about party members taking legal action against APC NEC, pointing out that it is unprecedented, saying that the constitution does not support members taking such action without exhausting internal mechanism for resolving grievances.

He said, “It is something we are looking at and it is a possibility because we have a responsibility to also protect the constitution of the party and to maintain discipline in accordance with the constitution.

We believe that if the highest organ of the party has taken a decision, whether you support that decision or not, you have to stand by it and if you are not happy, you take advantage of internal mechanism before you go to court.

There is no evidence at this time that such members avail themselves of the opportunities that exist internally to express their grievances before taking the matter to court”.