From Austine Tule, Makurdi
Former Executive Secretary, Benue State Emergency Management Agency and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Boniface Ortese, has called for the immediate suspension of the party’s State Chairman, Comrade Abba Yaro and Organizing Secretary, Mark Hanmation, over the poor outing of the party during the 2019 general elections in Benue.
In a complaint letter addressed to the National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomohle, which was made available to The AUTHORITY in Makurdi, Ortese alleged that the dou had tinkered with the list of elected executives of the party during it’s Congresses in 2018, from the ward, local government up to the state level.
According to the APC chieftain, “due to I’ll motives of the State chairman Abba Yaro and Mr. Hanmation, no report of the congress was prepared and submitted to the APC National Secretariat and could not be found at the state Secretariat in Benue state.
“When it was the time of the primaries, the state Chairman and the Organizing Secretary had their list different from the exco that were elected during the 2018 congress. At the end of the whole exercise, the popular yearnings of men and women of APC members were short changed through a black market arrangement by the State Chairman and his Organizing secretary”.
He also revealed that while sales of forms for state Houses of Assembly was done at various state secretariats of the party, in Benue state, the whole process was carried out under what he described as ‘behind the screen’ by Yaro and Hanmation, while alleging that Benue APC Secretariat was run as a secret organization by the duo who he said never disclosed whether any form of support was given to the party to prosecute the election or cared to brief stakeholders till date.
Attributing APC’s woeful loss of election to the double standard by the activities of some its members, Ortese also accused the State Organizing Secretary of betraying the APC by secretly revealing the party’s strategies to the PDP for some rewards
He therefore, called on the APC National Secretariat to set up a committee to investigate the two officers in order to return hope which is the current issue in the minds of APC members in the state.
When contacted, Benue State Publicity Secretary of the APC, James Ornguga, declined comments, noting that the party was yet to be served the said petition.
