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 Daily Independent Online.
* Friday, August 13, 2004.
ANPP holds convention December
11
Chesa Chesa,
Abuja.
The All Nigeria Peoples Party
(ANPP) has suspended it National Secretary, Alhaji Sani el-Matazu, over
allegations bordering on “credibility, misappropriation, insubordination
and incompetence”, and fixed December 11 for its national convention.
The suspension followed his
statements that suggested that the National Chairman, Don Etiebet,
collected a N300 million bribe from the Presidency.
The party has also dissolved
its executive committees in Abia, Anambra, Cross River, Imo and Kano
states. The affected states are now to be run by sole administrators and
caretaker committees while a committee is to be put in place to fashion
out modalities for the convention.
These decisions were reached
at the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) meeting on Tuesday and
Wednesday where a five-man panel of inquiry headed by the National Legal
Adviser, Gen. B. S. Magashi, was raised to investigate the allegations
against the national secretary and recommend further sanctions.
The NWC said after its
investigations, it found that a news magazine story alleging that Etiebet
collected the amount from the Presidency was “completely untrue,
malicious, frivolous and sponsored by mischief makers”.
“The NWC condemns the
statement to the press by El-Matazu, lending credence to the magazine’s
unfounded publication,” said a communiqu� issued at the end of the
meeting in Abuja.
The Deputy National Secretary,
Dr. Francis Egu, was appointed the acting national secretary by the NWC
that affirmed unreserved and unflinching confidence in Etiebet. It blamed
the rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of spreading malicious rumours
against the ANPP.
The decision to dissolve the
state, local government and ward executive committees in the five states
was part of the recommendations of a visitation panel that toured the
states to ascertain the strength and management of the party. Special
congresses would be held to elect new officials in the next three months.
The party kicked against the
new Labour Bill at the National Assembly seeking to decentralise the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). “The ANPP stands against the plans to
decimate the NLC for rising up against the sadistic, inhuman and
undemocratic policies and actions of the Obasanjo administration,” the
party said.
It however, endorsed the
position of the National Assembly that local government statutory
allocations be paid directly to the councils.
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