State chairmen of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), one of the parties that joined up to form the All Progressives Congress (APC), have disowned the leader of the Reformed All Progressives Congress (R-APC), Alhaji Buba Galadima.
This was just as the National Chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said his leadership would go to any length to dialogue with all party members with genuine concerns.
Galadima was a member of the defunct CPC.
Curiously, the purported Chairman of R-APC in Benue State, Noah McDickson, has also disowned the group, saying that he was never consulted before his appointment as the Benue State chairman of the group.
He said although he has grievances against APC, he was already in court trying to address the issue and so has no reason to join the R-APC.
Spokesman of the former CPC chairs, Umar Shuaibu, who spoke on their behalf when they visited the APC national secretariat on solidarity visit, said they were solidly behind the party’s leadership and President Muhammadu Buhari, especially in his fight against corruption.
The National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said the party can afford to ignore those he called “the Buba Galadimas of this world”, stressing, however, that his leadership was prepared to go to any length to dialogue with those with genuine concern with a view to addressing their concern and ensure that justice is done to all.
Oshiomhole told his visitors that the party leadership has started meeting with those with genuine concern, pointing out that all identified grievances, including the reward system, were being addressed.
He said: “I listened to Buba Galadima. I see a bird dancing on the pole and a disgruntled drummer not far away in the bush is drumming for him.
“But this is not to say that we are not aware that there are challenges here and there, but anything about APC is considered much more than the sum total of all the challenges we have in many of the states, and by the special grace of God, we shall overcome them and we are already overcoming them.
“I am very confident that we can afford to ignore Buba Galadima. And like I said yesterday, I’m ready to go to any length to talk to people who mean well and who have genuine grievances arising from communication gaps or misunderstanding or even from the error of judgement on the part of anyone or even from the way we have managed our patronage.
“Protests like these are acknowledged and we are working to resolve them. When we see people who have genuine grievances, we are not ashamed to talk to them. We recognise that democracy is an equaliser and only people who are humble enough to engage can survive, and we have been engaging.
“We have been meeting with various individuals and groups who we believe really have genuine concerns on certain matters, and we are making progress.
“But when we see people who don’t mean well, there are a lot of idle people who don’t have any other thing to do, and once they don’t have access to national honey pot, they begin to complain.
“For me, there is no cause for alarm. Nobody should panic over one Buba Galadima whose group I believe cannot define us in the next election in 2019.”
Speaking earlier, leader of the delegation and chairman of defunct CPC in Niger State, Umar Shuaibu, described the Buba Galadima-led group as distractors who are our to fly a kite that all was not well with the party.
