The All Progressives Congress (APC) has distanced itself from the ongoing leadership crisis within the PDP, which resulted in the police sealing the International Conference Centre, (ICC), initial venue of its stakeholders’ meeting on Monday.
Reacting to a statement credited to the Ahmed Makarfi-led faction, who held the ruling party liable for the action of the Police, the APC through its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, said it had no hand in the police action.
“We have been alerted to the statement credited to the Senator Ahmed Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that our party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is responsible for the action of the police, which prevented some members of that faction from meeting at the International Conference Centre in Abuja, initial venue of their stakeholders’ meeting.
“In that same statement, the Markarfi-PDP also alleged that the APC had somehow influenced the Appeal Court decision which ruled against it in its quest to be named as the authentic PDP by the court.
“We want to state that neither of these allegations is true in any respect. The police do not take instructions from the APC. The police themselves have explained why they stopped the Markarfi group from meeting at the ICC. If the factional PDP is dissatisfied with the police explanation, they could seek further clarifications from the police or pursue alternative means of redress.
“So far, the Makarfi group has not faulted the police or provided any proof for its allegations against our party, which we found quite surprising, considering that Makarfi and his group have in their ranks, individuals who are sufficiently experienced to know that without any evidence, such allegations could easily be dismissed as baseless and therefore be ignored by all right thinking members of the public, including our party.
“The reason we have not simply ignored the wild allegations is because we are imperiled by utterances and conducts that attack the integrity and independence of our judicial system. Every Nigerian should be worried by the behaviour of the various PDPs which is capable of eroding the confidence of Nigerians in our judicial system. Even as they battle themselves for survival, we urge restraint in the interest of our democracy.
“We wish to reiterate that the APC has no interest in the internal crisis of that is consuming the PDP, which is only one of several opposition parties in the country. We pray for them to put their house in order soon because as a political party that was once in the opposition, we believe that democracy is better served when the opposition is alive. However, we also know the PDP can only begin to take steps towards recovery if they stop peddling conspiracy theories and blaming imaginary enemies”, the statement said.
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