Ondo ACN disowns Boroffice APC merger committee

Action Congress of Nigeria in Ondo State on Wednesday dissociated itself from the All Progressives Congress  merger committee’s purported constitution in the state.

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Agbede, after its State Executive Committee meeting, the party also declared that the Senator Ajayi Boroffice-led merger panel was invalid.

The panel, it said, did not have the support of the party’s national secretariat.

Boroffice, an ACN stalwart, had at the inauguration of the APC merger committee in Akure, said the merging parties put it in place to provide a framework for easy transition to APC.

Chairmen of the Congress for Progressive Change, All Nigeria Peoples Party and the All Progressives Grand Alliance in the state, who attended the meeting, said they had ordered their members to work with other merging groups to commence mobilisation ahead of the 2015 general elections.

However, the ACN in the state had directed its members to ignore the committee and exercise restraints in any matter concerning the merger plans, pending a directive from its national secretariat.

The statement read, “The meeting expressed its utter dismay and condemned in strong terms, a publication in some national dailies announcing the constitution of a steering committee for the APC purportedly by some members in the state.

“The directives for the activities that will lead to the final consummation of the merger plans have been flowing directly from the national secretariats of the merging parties to all state chapters.

“The Ondo State chapter of the ACN as a disciplined organ is awaiting the directive of its national body in this regard.”

But Boroffice, in his reaction, dismissed the claims, saying those who issued the statement lacked locus standi to do so.

He said, “I was given the mandate to midwife the process of bringing all the parties involved in the merger process together being the highest political office-holder in the Ondo ACN by the national leadership of the party and there was a communique to that effect.

“There is no executive of ACN again in the state because it had been dissolved. The APC held its convention in Lagos where the decision was taken. We had submitted our party’s licence and certificate.

“The problem with those still parading themselves as executives of the ACN in the state is that they have the ambition of automatically becoming officers of the APC after the full merger and that is not constitutional.”