By Ogar Monday
Listen To The Report
The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Cross River, Barr. Alphonsus Eba, on Monday, said the party has not zoned the governorship position to the Southern Senatorial District or any other in the State.
This is a volte-face from the party whose leader, Governor Ben Ayade had said the party will nominate a candidate from the Southern Senatorial District of the State.
Eba, however, said the decision on which district the party’s governorship candidate will emerge from, will involve consultation across the board. He said it will be a thorough process that will go through the wards, Local Government before culminating in a decision by the caucus members at the State level.
“The party has not zoned the governorship position of the party, and that decision will be taken in a proper caucus of the State Executive,” Eba said at a press conference held in Calabar.
He averred that: “The constitution of the party spells out those who are members of the caucus, the beauty of it is that the Governor is one of the persons that is going to sit in that caucus meeting. As State Chairman I will sit there, former National Assembly Members, Local Government Chairmen, some recognized officers will be part of it as stated in Article 9 of the party.”
Eba revealed that the party was going to embark on a membership drive to strengthen its base and improve its performance in the coming elections.
“When we came on board, we told our people that our mission was political evangelism. The first phase of that evangelical mission has recorded huge successes. The benefit of that was that the number of registered members in the APC today has increased tremendously.
“I was alerted that the various Chapter Chairmen ran short of registration materials and the party took it upon themselves to go and procure materials that will be able to register another one million people into our party.
“Today we are happy to say that we have started another phase of political evangelism.
“It is coming at a time, where we expect all members of the party, which are the one million members we have, to be commissioned as political evangelists,” Eba said.