APC MEMBERS CALL FOR SACK OF STATE EXCO FOR SQUANDERING N350 MILLION

Members of the All Progressive Congress, APC Cross River State Chapter have called for the immediate removal of the chapter Executives Council members led by Pastor Usani Usani, for hoarding, diverting and mismanagement of the party’s 350 Million Naira meant for the conduct of the just concluded general election in the State.

The call was made yesterday Thursday in a stakeholders meeting organized by the party’s South-South Vice Chairman, Hilliard Etta in Calabar which he described as a post mortem to ascertain why the party in the state performed very poorly in the election.

The APC lost the governorship to PDP, won no seat in the House of Representatives, and barely returned one member into the State House of Assembly irrespective of the huge funding it got from the national body.

The South-South Vice Chairman expressed dismay that a good number of the State Working Committee and the state chapter executive members were not in attendance at the meeting which notice was disseminated 4 days earlier to x-ray the problems of the party and proffer solutions.

He warned that if the act of absenteeism continues, he will be forced to take drastic disciplinary actions against erring members.

 “If the party at the national level worked like Cross River chapter then we won’t have the victory we got today, after getting over 350 million naira the party is still where it is. Over 100 million naira for the Presidential and House of Representatives election, 24 million accrued to the state chapter from the sale of forms and others came in, I cannot say exactly how much the Rivers Governor, Rotimi Amaechi helped the state with. I know candidates who went to election with empty hands irrespective of the huge money gotten”, Hilliard Etta said.

He added that, “I wanted a situation whereby the entire state executive members will be here to explain how more than 350 million naira was used. Money is meant to be in the account of the party not an individual account and accessed when the party has need for it”.

In an interactive session where some party leaders cutting across the 3 senatorial district in the state were allowed to explain to the best of their knowledge where the problems of the party lies, Barrister Lazarus Undie of Obudu in the northern senatorial district pointed out that part of the failure included the inability of polling unit committees to meet for even one day due to lack of funding for the party.

 “Obudu got 4.6 million naira for the presidential election while 720 thousand naira came for governorship, nothing more”. He said.

On his part, Barrister Eyo Nsa Ekpo who contested for the House of Representatives to represent the Calabar Municipality/Odukpani federal constituency revealed that, “I discovered on the 27 day of March, 2015 that ten million naira meant for Cross River State was trapped in Uyo for weeks, it was the Akwa Ibom State candidate for governor that hinted me after several attempts at contacting the state chairman, Usani to come and claim the money”.

Maintaining that he, Eyo called Usani severally but he got deaf ears. “He instructed that the money be paid into his personal account, the betrayal of the party started from the top, we can’t continue like this”. He called for an immediate passing of vote of no confidence to remove the chairman and his cohorts.