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AD Convention: All
stakeholders were consulted —Hassan
ALHAJI Mohamed Ibrahim Hassan is the
chairman, National Convention Committee (NCC) of the Alliance for Democracy
(AD). In this interview he granted Correspondent, VINCENT EGUNYANGA,
ahead of today’s fresh convention, he says all stakeholders in the party were
carried along before deciding on the event. Excerpts:
You are having another convention of AD
today. Why do you need another convention?
Thank you very much, I am, as you know,
Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan, a former Minister of Mines and Power in the second
Republic and Alliance for Democracy governorship candidate in Gombe State in
2003 and now the chairman of National Convention Committee of the Alliance for
Democracy AD. We are holding a fresh National Convention of the party, one,
because up till now the Alliance for Democracy hasn’t got a recognized and
lawful national executive committee. You remember that on December 16, 2003,
unfortunately, we organized two parallel national conventions, one in Abuja and
the other in Lagos, where two parallel national executive committee members were
elected and consequently, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
realizing that two conventions were organized, refused to attend to any of the
conventions and also refused to recognize the leaderships that emerged from
those two conventions and therefore (INEC) almost severed relationship with AD
and that lead to the devastating failure of AD during the last local government
election, because AD could not field candidates in most of the local government
areas across the country, because invariably, you find two candidates from the
two factions coming as candidates and INEC, since December 16, 2003, has been
telling us consistently that unless we resolve this leadership crisis within the
party, it will severe its relationship with us. It means INEC will not have
anything to do with us. INEC will not receive our candidates, and we can not
therefore field our candidates for elections and therefore the whole purpose of
creating AD would have been defeated
A political party is created to canvas for
votes, to filed candidates to win elections and to serve the people. All these
would be reduced to nothing. So INEC gave us four options. Precisely, on
February 11, 2003, INEC addressed the leadership of the party, both old and new
and it gave us options, either we resolve our crisis from within ourselves or
they come and help us to resolve the crisis In that case, we have to sign an
undertaking to agree with their resolution or we go to a fresh convention and
elect credible leaders not factional leaders. Now we have decided to go for
convention even though we tired at first to go to court thinking that the court
will resolve the crisis for us easily and everybody will just follow whatever
the courts says
But then, we found out that the court
process was so long, so cumbersome, so difficult that even up to the end of the
deadline given to us, we might not resolve the crisis, because no matter which
way one court decides the issue the loser will appeal and consequently in the
next two years, we might not resolve the matter And secondly, since we started
those cases in court, one in Abuja, one in Lagos, we are still in the
preliminaries, we have not even got into substantive issues, so because of that
we decided that the best option was to go for a new convention, and let me tell
you one important factor in this crisis, two conventions were held in December
mainly because the National Convention committee, itself headed by myself,
became divided, politicians were able to divide us. Some people, took some of
our convention committee members to Abuja, and the rest of us went to Lagos. Now
we say if we are going for a fresh convention, that is unified, consolidated and
with out cocrcion, concertedly among all of us first and foremost, the National
Convention committee must be united, so I took steps to unite the National
Convention Committee.
We are sixteen in number, and out of this
sixteen, I am glad to tell the world that thirteen of us are intact. We resolved
that we will organize another convention for the party in accordance with the
directive of INEC, the supervising authority. Now this thirteen members of the
National Convention Committee constitute the majority by every calculation. Then
we started consultation among party leaders, party elders, and elected officials
of the party. Remember we had elected ward leadership, local government
leaderships and state executive committee members. They had been accepted by
INEC, so we had to go through consultation at the state level.
We called all the elected state chairmen
who by law are delegates. We called all of them together and presented these
problems to them and they all agreed that we will go for fresh convention.
That’s number one. Number two, since we zoned the national chairmanship to the
South West zone, we felt it was a South West problem that we should consult the
South West leadership of AD to find out whether they too accepted the holding of
another convention. Then we said that all the elected officials of AD in the
South West should come together for a meeting. We got all the state chairmen and
we got all the members of the House of Assembly in those states. In the South
West, all the members of the Senate, all the members of he House of
Representatives and elders, stakeholders and movers of the party in the South
West were asked to meet in Ibadan. This problem was presented to them and they
all resolved that we should go a fresh convention. That’s number two. Number
three, we got in touch with Chief Micheal Koleosho who was the acting National
Chairman of the AD at the time of the past conventions, and who constituted our
committee, the National Convention Committee which INEC has recognized. The only
convention committee INEC recognized. We consulted him and he too contacted Bisi
Akande and Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa together in his house. He talked to them. He
placed before them the necessity for a new convention. Bisi Akande said." I am
okay. Whatever the party decides is okay. I am a party man, and a child of the
party. I will follow what the party says. "But Akinfenwa said No. He is so
stubborn, so recalcitrant, so intransigent that he believes that he just must
remain the chairman by all means. Can we allow one man to hold AD to ransom? AD
is a national Party, we cannot. So we all agreed to hold a fresh convention.
So INEC will be coming for the convention?
We believe quiet sincerely, that now that
the National Convention Committee is united, and is holding a convention, we
believe reasonably that INEC will come and observe our convention. We hope that
all the honest, sincere, loyal members of the party all over the country should
come and attend this convention and elect their own leaders. We also hope that
all those who have AD in their mind will attend as no particular individual no
matter who he is, is bigger than the party. The issue is not Bola Tinubu, not
Akinfenwa, not Akande, AD is more than them.
Those who contested the last election,
considering that they spent a lot of money campaigning and sponsoring delegates
to the election venue, will you refund their money to them since the convention
they participated in has been annulled?
Those who contested in the last convention
in Lagos and Abuja are not entitled to anything. In fact, let me tell you,
candidates have never mobilized and transported delegates to the election
grounds. It is individuals, resource fellow who contribute money. Now that we
have declared that we have dissolved all the so-called purported leaderships
that were elected or selected in Abuja or Lagos, we have dissolved them, but we
have left their offices open, if any of them is still interested they are free
to come and re-contest.
When is the sale of forms closing, and how
many people have indicated interest in contesting so far, especially the
chairmanship.
Because of the time factor, we did not put
a closing date for receiving and returning of forms.
How much are contestants paying to buy
forms
For National Officers, it is twenty
thousand naira. But for the chairmanship, it is one hundred thousand naira.
Recently, the Afenifere came up with a
statement, that the Akinfenwa faction is the authentic executive of AD what is
their position on that now?
Let me first say, I personally respect
members of Afenifere. But Afenifere is a tribal, cultural, ethnic organization
of the Yoruba people. It is not an agent of AD, it is not an organ of AD, not a
structure of AD, it is not constitutionally known or recognized in AD. It has no
constitutional function in AD, so their recognizing the Akinfenwa faction is
irrelevant.
Let me tell you one important thing, all
the crisis in AD is Afenifere creation. Afenifere in 1999, during the
organization and mobilization of the general elections, instead of allowing the
AD supporters all over the country through their convention to elect a
presidential candidate, Afenifere alone sat down in Ibadan and gave the ticket
to Chief Olu Falae, to be the Presidential candidate. That was wrong. What of
the other people in the East, South South or the North. That was the beginning
of the crisis in AD. They should know that AD is not a Yoruba party, it is a
national party.
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