A pressure group, Niger Delta Media Activists Group and Excellent Leadership Foundation, has urged the Bayelsa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) not to shift ground over the recent suspension of the minister of state Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri for alleged anti-party activities.
The group’s national coordinator, Chief Izzi Yakiah, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, alleged the minister’s action is capable of negatively impacting APC’s votes in Bayelsa State in the 2027 general elections.
Yakiah said Lokpobiri, since joining APC in 2015, has placed his personal ambition above the party’s interest.
The group recalled that after Lokpobiri appointment as minister of state Agriculture few months after he joined the party, he allegedly set up a parallel APC secretariat in Yenagoa in May, 2019 and announced the installation of Hon. Ebierein Fala Itubor as a factional state chairman.
He said the minister continued his unconstitutional act with a parallel state congresses which was rejected by the National Working Committee of the Com. Adams Oshiomole-led APC.
“The negative anti-party trajectory of Sen. Lokpobiri continued when he instituted multiple court cases first to stop Chief David Lyon’s candidature in the 2019 Bayelsa State Governorship Election and secondly to upturn the victory of the 2019 APC Governorship candidate.
“After the 2021 APC Congresses, he also instituted a case through one Alex Blankson to dissolve the party’s executive from the 105 Wards, 8 Local Government and the State. That case is still pending at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.”
Yakiah further alleged that the Lokpobiri has not participated in any party activity in the state, including the last November Governorship campaigns, till the day he was appointed by President Bola Tinubu in August, 2023 as minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil).
He however urged the Bayelsa APC leadership not to shift grounds over the minister’s suspension along side other party members whose anti-party activities almost brought the party to its knees.
He added that their years of anti-party activities led to their suspension by the Ekeremor, Southern Ijaw, Sagbama and Yenagoa Local Government Areas APC Executives.
Yakiah noted that this cleansing is necessary for committee members to heal and undertake proper rebuilding of the party towards the 2027 general elections.
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