By Gabriel Atumeyi
Former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, says the ongoing membership revalidation exercise is against the ruling party’s constitution.
Speaking on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, after his participation in the exercise at his ward in Edo state, Oshiomhole described the revalidation process as strange.
The former governor of Edo state noted that the APC is governed by a constitution, which does not provide for a person to revalidate or renew membership.
“APC is governed by a constitution and not by man. The constitution only provides for registration and I registered as a member of the APC in 2014 under the interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande,” Oshiomhole said.
“There is nothing in the APC constitution that says a member shall revalidate or renew his membership. Once you registered when you joined the party and you have not decamped, you are a member. So, revalidation is strange to our constitution.
“I have only done this because I want peace to reign, but in doing this, we have to be careful not to create constitutional breach. If you ask me as a foundation member, who has never decamped, to revalidate my membership, it is double registration because there is nothing like revalidation in our constitution.
“Asking me to revalidate my membership means I was not a member. So, I think the correct language should be either reviewing or updating, because it makes sense to review the voters’ register due to the new members that have joined or those that have exited. So, what this means now is that I have come here to do another registration, but I insist that my registration never expired within the provision of the APC constitution.
“History didn’t just begin today. If we don’t have a valid register, how did we conduct the congress in 2015 in which 16 million registered APC members voted to nominate President Muhammadu Buhari before the general election?”