APC Crisis: Police officers stationed at secretariat

Police officers have been deployed to the national secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.

A statement later released by the Police noted that the deployment of officers was a proactive move to maintain peace, and ensure there is no breakdown of law and order at the secretariat.

"The presence of police personnel at the Secretariat is not to seal-up the complex as has been reported in some quarters but rather to prevent any untoward situation within and around the APC National Secretariat.

"Members of the APC as well as staff of the Secretariat are therefore at liberty to conduct their legitimate businesses, in and around the Secretariat as always," the statement read.

This is the latest development of a leadership crisis that has turned the party on its head since a Court of Appeal in Abuja upheld the suspension of Adams Oshiomhole as national chairman.

APC's leadership crisis

A majority of the party's NWC ratified the appointment of former Oyo governor, Abiola Ajimobi, who's also the party's deputy national chairman (South), as its acting national chairman.

Due to Ajimobi's current hospitalisation with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Hilliard Etta, the party's vice-chairman (South-South), was appointed to act on his behalf.

However, Victor Giadom, a former deputy national secretary of the party declared himself the acting national chairman, claiming he was entitled to take over from Oshiomhole because a court had granted such a request in March 2020.

Victor Giadom has, of recent, been a thorn in the flesh of the APC's National Working Committee (NWC) [Vanguard] Pulse Nigeria

The party dismissed his claim saying he was no longer a member of the NWC because he resigned to contest as deputy governor in the 2019 Rivers State governorship election, and was yet to be readmitted.

Days ago, the Rivers chapter of the APC suspended him for bringing the party "irredeemable disrepute" through "numerous infractions of the party constitution and conduct".

The party said he should immediately write a letter of apology, and publish it in three national newspapers.

Worgu Boms, a former attorney-general of Rivers State, was also sworn into the NWC on Monday, June 22, to replace Giadom.

Giadom described his suspension and replacement as "laughable" during a media briefing at the national secretariat on Monday.

"I'm sure you know that I was elected at the convention, and as I have told Nigerians, that level of impunity and rascality must be corrected.

"You cannot smuggle someone into the National Working Committee without an election.

"Anybody who wants to be a member of the National Working Committee should present his or herself for a democratic election.

"You cannot just bring somebody from anywhere to fill any office in the National Working Committee," he said.

He also called for a meeting of the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) to resolve the leadership crisis.