By Francis H. Murray
Just days to the much anticipated mini congress of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), another obstacle has emerged.
A group of “Concerned” APC members are calling for the postponement of the meeting scheduled for Port Loko this weekend, citing breach in constitutional provisions in preparation for its.
The group, in a petition letter addressed to the chairman of the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC), said that the APC leadership had flouted, without regard for consequences, statutory requirements which must be satisfied before a draft constitution could be considered and adopted.
The letter signed by 14 people, including the leader of a pressure group within the party, the National Reformation Movement (NRM), Mohamed Sheridan Kamara, also called on the party to adhere to the requisite statutory provision which provides for a participatory review of the party’s constitution.
This provision, as well as several others in the constitution, seek to foster a consensus review of the constitution of the party and has been violated by the APC leadership, the letter noted.
The Port Loko mini congress is expected to conclude and formally adopt the revised constitution of the party, among others.
Since news about the meeting was reported, it had received a lot of criticisms by some members who faulted the procedure taken by the party’s leadership.
According to the ‘Concerned Members’, they are particularly concerned about the violation of section 24 of the Political Parties Act which states that ‘‘where a political party registered under section 12 intends to alter – (a) its constitution……. It shall notify the commission of its intention and the commission shall, within fourteen days after receipt of its notification, caused to be published by government notice the intended alteration and invite objections, if any, to anything contained in the intended alteration’’ .
As part of the flaws of the party’s leadership, according to the ‘Concerned Members’, it has not only failed to conduct the election for twenty delegates for the women’s Congress, twenty delegates for the Youth League, five delegates by each constituency as provided for in Section 6 subsection 9 (1) of the 1995 Constitution of the APC, but it has also failed to provide the list of delegates even as the proposed National Delegate Conference was just days away.
The group said these are “calculated” attempts by the party’s leadership to “surreptitiously” extend their hold over power thereby contravening the statutory provisions and the tenets of democracy.
The APC leadership has dismissed the concerns of the Concerned Members.’ Its spokesman, Sidi Yayah Tunis, told Politico that the party was determined to go ahead with the congress as planned.
‘‘I’m assuring the membership of the APC that we’re going into the National Delegate Conference from the 10th to the 12th and that they should not be worried about the press release issued today by the National Reformation Movement (NRM) asking PPRC to put the conference on hold’’, he assured, adding: ‘‘We’ll go into the conference, amend the constitution and come out.”
A PPRC spokesman confirmed that they had received the letter but said they wouldn’t comment on it until a planned meeting scheduled for Thursday, January 9.
Lucian Momoh, Communications Officer for PPRC, told Politico that that meeting will decided on the appropriate move by the Commission with regards the petition.
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