Cross River State: APC unveils 55,000-member Election Campaign Council
Eme Offiong, Calabar.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River state, southern Nigeria, has unveiled its campaign council list of 55,000 members to guarantee success at the forthcoming general election.
The chairman of the party in Cross River, Dr. Alphonsus Eba, made the announcement at the APC secretariat in Calabar, the state capital, during a media briefing.
Eba disclosed that the APC campaign council, which would be led by Nigeria’s former ambassador to Mali, Mr. Soni Abang, has adopted the slogan “Sweep It Clean”, symbolizing the effectiveness of the broom.
According to him, the campaign council at the state level has 2,500 members, while the local government campaign council has over 52,000 members.
“After due consultations with stakeholders including the governor, Senator Ben Ayade, the governorship candidate, Senator Bassey Otu and other critical senior members of our party, we have agreed that the time is ripe to move to the field.
“But we will do this by putting in place the mechinery of those who will drive the process.
“As you are all aware the party will not continue to carry the herculean task of carrying the campaign when we have over one million duly registered members of the party.
“It is, therefore, our intention that a reasonable number out of that would be saddled with specific roles to be engaged in the arrangement.
“The State Campaign Council will comprise of 2,500 members, while the Local Government Campaign Council will comprise of not less than 52,000 members built up into 27 directorates.
“The chapter and ward chairmen and all stakeholders at the local government level have been given full autonomy to constitute, based on their peculiarities and circumstances, a campaign council that would run between 10 to 100,000 in each of the wards and polling units,” he stated.
Sweeping the Polls
The APC chairman in Cross River state, Dr. Alphonsus Eba, disclosed that the reason for such a large number of campaign council members was to guarantee that APC sweeps more than 500,000 votes, which he noted would be about 85 per cent of votes come February 25, 2023 in support of the presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“While we do not want to be self-confident, we want to have 100 per cent even though we know it is doable because our people have come to realize that they have been liberated from the shackles and manacles of the political shenanigans and jiggery-pokery of yesterday.
“Therefore, we want to start at a very conservative percentage of about 85 per cent of the votes, which would represent about 500 thousand plus votes,” said the party chairman.
He expressed gratitude to the APC candidate for taking the bold step to reconcile Senator John Owan-Enoh and the gubernatorial candidate Senator Bassey Otu as well as harping on the need for peace.
The state chairman further disclosed that the APC presidential candidate would be in Calabar on January 21, 2023 for the presidential campaign and enjoined party faithful including well-meaning Nigerians to support the party’s candidates.
He added that despite all arrangements, the party’s leadership would be on religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem to seek God’s favour, asserting “we (APC) have already won the elections ahead of time.”
