A group “APC Congress Men” has petitioned the state chairman of the All Progressive Congress APC Plateau state Latep Dabang to the national Secretariat, accusing him of alleged financial recklessness, and, ijacked the party structure.
“Hon Latep Dabang has abuse the ranks of this great party. He has imposed himself as Sole Administrator to the party; he is now the party’s Financial Secretary, Treasurer, Organizing Secretary, Publicity Secretary, and also act as Deputy to his own office. This has caused disaffection within the ranks of the party.”
It also said Mr Dabang has made himself and family members contractors.
“Hon Latep Dabang was allotted 153 contract slots by the Plateau State Primary Education Board (SUBEB) on behalf of the APC Exco members and party faithfuls; but he personalized the lots to his children and in-laws.
Also, MDG contract was given to the State Party Chairman to the tune of Seventy Three Million Naira only (N73,000,000), whose proceed was to support the running of the party but was diverted for personal usage.”
The petition issued to Journalists in Jos on Friday, by one Youmpee Jalmet, the petitioner claimed to be a stakeholder in the party alleged the Mr Dabang was singled handlily managing affairs of the party.
“Hon Latep Dabang has now gone from the sublime to the ridiculous were the likes of Capt. Joseph Din (Member BOT), the Late John N. Shagaya, Hon. Jock Alamba (National Deputy Welfare Secretary), Ahj. Ibrahim Dasuki (Former Minister), among others have been deliberately side-lined from state party affairs by the party chairman; this is why they have decided to stay away from the secretariat.”
The petitioner copied national Secretariat of the party, governor Simon Lal ong and many key national party officials.
“Iam hereby persuaded to present this petition to intimate you, on the reckless looting of the treasury of the Plateau State APC. I humbly and respectfully entreat that a launch of an investigation into the person and office of the State Party Chairman be carried out to forestall further damage.”
On the alleged financial misappropriation, the petition stated that “during the last exercise conducted by the party preparatory to the local government and Councillor election, the various forms were sold to party aspirants as follows:-
Chairmanship forms – 80 forms – @N600,000/form = N48,000,000
Councillorship forms – 720 forms – @N200,000 = N144,000,000
Total cash on sales of form = N192,000,000.”
It alleged that the party chairman was avoiding others party executives “as Party Chairman, Hon Latep Dabang is yet to convene a State Executive meeting to appraise, before the Exco, the State-of-Affairs of the party, and to parley on how to move the party forward; neither has he indicated the honours of making transparent before oblivious party Excos the income and expenditure of the party so far.”
Reacting to the allegations leveled against him, in an interview with Journalists, the Plateau state APC Latep Dabang said the allegations were false, unfounded, and are meant to tarnish his image before party faithfuls.
Meanwhile, a source has said the APC chairman has planned imposing him self on the party as the only candidate during the forthcoming state congresses as the party chairman in Plateau state.
Our source claimed that the party executives have sold nomination forms to themselves, ahead of the state congresses in Plateau state, slated for June this year.
A chieftain of the APC in the state who prefers not to be named said the interpretation given the position of the national secretariat of the party is wrong as nowhere did the party say all exco members must be retained.
“In the case of Plateau, what they are saying is that no other person apart from the current exco members from the ward to the state level can contest; how is that possible?
“That means other party members are not qualified to contribute to the development of the party,” he said.
The APC chieftain said this is not only in undemocratic but authoritarian and may lead to chaos and disaffection within the party.
According to our source, the state chapter of the APC is however insisting that since the national secretariat of the party is retaining the current zoning arrangement ahead of the forthcoming congress, then all the party officials of the party in Plateau must be given right-of first refusal to re-contest their seat while others cannot contest for any of the positions unless a member of the exco is not interested.
The normal arrangement is that the chairman of the party cannot be from the same zone with either the state governor or the deputy of the state and we thought this an opportunity to correct the present situation where the state chairman of the party comes from the same zone with the deputy governor but some undemocratic forces are insisting that the wrong thing must continue,” he said.
He said the closeness of the time of the congress to the time of the primary should not be used as an excuse as the tenure of the exco would expire almost within the same period in 2022.
“So we must do the right thing now and put in place an exco that will give every zone a sense of responsibility,” he said.
It will be recalled that Mr Latep Dabang, had recently in an interview with Journalists in his office, shortly after governor Simon Lalong declared his intention to recontest his office during the next congresses, Mr Dabang also said will recontest is position as party chairman.
It has been observed that the Plateau state APC Secretariat, though strategically located along popular Yakubu Gowon, Bukuru expressway, on Abuja Jos road, seems in recent time a ghost town, as there are no activities taken place there.
[9:59 PM, 4/27/2018] MIDAT: By Teryima Andrew
