By Moses Gbande
The All Progressives Congress, APC in Plateau state is currently facing an internal squabbles in efforts to pick a candidate to fill the vacant position of Jos North Bassa Federal Constituency in the forthcoming by-election.
The independent National Electoral Commission has declared that, the by-election in Jos North/Bassa Federal Constituency is billed to be conducted within one month time. Unfortunately, the APC is still battling with one problem or the other.
The party is said to be engulfed in certain disagreements that if not properly resolved would tear the party apart, or even degenerate beyond party squabbles to ethnic, or religious crisis, based on the complexity of issues in the Constituency.
It is no longer news as to how the seat became vacant, but for the sake of records, Hon. Haruna Maitala who was elected to represent the Constituency had answered the call of nature during a ghastly motor accident that occurred sometimes last year while on his way to Jos from Abuja.
Since that period, many interest groups thronged out indicating reasons why the ought to be considered worthy to succeed Late Hon. Maitala. The interest was higher beyond surprises as Bassa alone Came out with over twenty Aspirants, aside Jos North.
Apparently disturbed by this scenario, the party, and the government thought it wise to put in place, a committee to mediate and bring down the interest to manageable size.
The interest of the state is that, it has a tradition where in recent time the senator representing plateau Southern Senatorial zone, Ambassador Ignatius Lonjan died, and the party insisted that any of his successor must be from Quanpan, to allow them complete their tenure, where it came to pass.
In a similar manner, when the state lost another state legislator, Hon.Ezikiel Afon, the same principle was applied and a candidate was chosen from Pengana chiefdom to complete the tenure.
But the party believes in this principle seems to be facing a serious challenge as Jos North and other chiefdoms are not willing to conceed to these arrangements.
The lobbying committee set up by the state and party leadership to mediate between the interest groups, are equally indicated of complicity.
Recent report has it that, instead of adhering to the terms of reference, which to prevail on Jos North to allow Bassa Local government to produce candidate under the party arrangrments to complete its tenure, the committee rather went beyond the scope, and announced to the public that they have successfully come out with a consensus candidate, the circumstances that is not going down well with other contenders.
As a result, our correspondent in an interactive session with two of these aspirants; Hon. Abbey Joseph Aku, former Commisioner Commerce and Industry Plateau and Hon. Chindo Gona, former Chairman Bassa LG all vying for same position debunked the insinuation making the rounds that Bassa has produced a consensus candidate for the forth coming By-election for Jos North/ Bassa Federal Constituency.
According to Abbey, .”for us in Bassa , we have never at any time sat down to decided on any consensus candidate. The party at the state had set up a lobbying committee, I was a member of that committee before I resigned to contest. Our primary assignment was to lobby Jos North to allow Bassa to complete its tenure.
“When the party eventually realized that so many candidates came up from Bassa, the party gave the committee additional responsibility to go and bring down the number of candidates to a management size and not to go and bring a consensus candidate. Whatever the committee has gone to do is outside the terms of reference.
“Secondly, Bassa has three chiefdoms; Rukuba, Irrigwe and Pengana. If there is going to be a consensus candidate, all these chiefdoms must come together and agree on one person. It never happened that way.
“Again, Bassa has 16 wards, comprising of Pengana 7 wards, Rukuba 4 wards and Irrigwe 5wards. And in the meeting they are claiming to produce a consensus candidate, eleven (11) walked out. Only five (5) sat to produce consensus candidate, it is not possible. Five can’t speak for eleven.
” Again, out of the ten members committee, Seven resigned from the committee. So for integrity purpose, only three conducted the so called consensus.
“So I am fully in the race. I have purchased my form and will soon make formal declaration”.
Nasarawa Reporters 