Atiku Coming To Right The Wrongs – ADC Chieftain

A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Prof. Festus Arunaye, has said former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would right the wrongs if he had done any while he was the vice president.

Arunaye, a national member, ADC Membership Revalidation, Mobilisation and Registration Committee (MRMRC), stated this during the inauguration of the 10-member Delta state committee on membership registration at the weekend in Asaba.

Addressing the party members in Delta, he sai,d following their inauguration, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party gave a clear directive that within 30 days, all states must submit interim reports on membership registration and financial accountability.

According to Arunaye, Atiku supports a free, fair and credible primary process and believes in collective victory, making the ADC a party to beat in the forthcoming general election.

“Also, I will tell you is that Atiku Abubakar wants to right the wrongs, if he had done any wrong while he was the Vice President. Atiku has not condemned any other aspirants coming together to form the coalition.

“Atiku believes that they will all go to the primary, which will be free, fair, and credible, and that any person who wins, the ADC will work for that person.

That is the goal and mission of our great party,” he said.

Arunaye explained that the inauguration of the committee was necessitated by the need to ensure transparency and accountability in the revalidation and registration process.

He noted that the hoarding of party membership cards, which was the case in the past, would not be experienced in the new ADC because the state, LGA and ward chairmen would not have any contact with the cards.

Arunaye urged members of the Committee to live above board and ensure that party cards were not hijacked by money bags, even as he disclosed that the cards had unique features that would make it difficult to be used outside the state.

The national committee member stated that membership cards would be distributed according to the demand of every state and warned against collecting money on behalf of the national body, insisting that cards must not be collected by proxy and all payments must be made to a dedicated deposit account.

“We know that ADC is a coalition of different faces of politicians, some of whom have been in government for long and have amassed substantial wealth to buy off the cards. This ADC doesn’t want that to happen.

“If you are in the village, you have an equal opportunity of having your card, and it is duly accounted for in Abuja through the database because as you pay into the account, you will have the information that you are a financial member of the party.

“Secondly, we are going to follow the physical registration with electronic registration. The App for that is being developed and would be ready in the next five days for all the states and the FCT. So, this is a new era of politicians that have come together to uplift our dear nation from pilfering and mismanagement and for the people at the grassroots to have a stake and equal opportunity with the money bags in the party,” Arunaye said.

Responding on behalf of the 10-man committee, the chairman, Dr Leo Ebinim, assured that they would work to strengthen the party’s membership base, enhance mobilisation efforts, oversee the revalidation and registration of members in the state and report back within the stipulated time.