BY PETER DURUbb

MAKURDI —The crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Benue State, has degenerated as leaders of the party walked out on the Senate Minority Leader, Senator George Akume, at a harmonization meeting of all opposition parties in the state on Sunday.
Sources told Vanguard that the meeting which took place in Makurdi, the state capital, was called by leaders of opposition parties to harmonise their views with the aim of collapsing into the APC.

“Trouble started when the former Governor decided to nominate and imposed his long time political associate and friend, Targema Takema as the chairman of the harmonization committee.
“The development infuriated majority of the leaders at the meeting because most of them felt that he lacked the pedigree, experience and political clout to head such a sensitive committee,” the sources said.

The Deputy Governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN during the 2011 election, Alhaji Abubakar Usman (Young Alhaji) confirmed that he walked out of the meeting in protest of the alleged authoritarian tendencies of Senator Akume.
“Akume imposed Takema wrongfully on the party, Takema was never a member of ACN. All the processes that took place was against the constitution of the party. I, Senator Waku and many other people had to walk out of that meeting,” added.

In his reaction, the state chairman of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, and leader of the New APC in the state, Mr. Baba Agan said, “as leader of the New APC in Benue State, I can assure you that our faction will continue to resist the autocratic tendencies of Senator Akume in the state.