By Chioma Onuegbu

Uyo—FRESH crisis is rocking All Progressives Congress, APC, in Akwa Ibom State, following the suspension of 22 local government chapter chairmen, and 10 state officers of the party.

The state Legal Adviser, Mr. Emms Ekongson; the state Publicity Secretary, Mr. Samuel Udobong; state Organising Secretary, Mr. Bassey Essiet, were among the officers affected.

It was gathered that the party had in a letter dated September 12, by its state Secretary, Mr. Effiong Etok, accused the party officers of holding parallel meetings intended to undermine the state party directives and decisions, and issuing threat text messages and phone calls to party officials, which contravene Article 21(ii), (iii) and (v) of the party’s constitution.

It was further gathered that the crisis had resulted in the emergence of two factions of the party in the state as the aggrieved members of the party no longer participate in party activities, insisting on the immediate withdrawal of the suspension letter.

When contacted, Mr. Etok said: “The panel of inquiry set up to investigate the matter has not submitted its report for us to know whether or not the rumour about their anti-party activities is true. It is a trivial issue and we are hoping to resolve it very soon.”

“Our grouse”
Some of the aggrieved council chairmen, who spoke to Vanguard denied being involved in anti-party activities, though they decried the lack of transparency and accountability among the leaders of Akwa Ibom APC

Eket Local Government Area Chairman of the party, Mr. Godwin Akwaowo, said: “We did not engaged in any anti-party activities.
“In fact, trouble started when they handpicked a chapter chairman to be the chairman of all the chapters’ Chairmen. Other chapter Chairmen of the party said no, that we want it done by election.

“Secondly, since we went to the party national convention some months ago, it was not all the delegates from Akwa Ibom APC that have collected the N20,000 that was paid to delegates.

“After having made several efforts to get same without any positive result, we later found out that $30,000 was actually given for accommodation of delegates, but while we were in Abuja no accommodation was provided for us.

“We also learnt that another $45,000 was given and we were not aware of it. So we went for the national convention in Abuja and returned empty-handed. When we asked question, they