Power Tussle Disrupts ADC e-Registration Flag-Off In Enugu

The planned e-registration flag-off of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Enugu State was marred by an internal leadership crisis of the party on Thursday.

THE WHISTLER reports that the event, which held at Admiral Suites, Independence Layout, was temporarily suspended when some interests claiming to be the founding fathers of the party challenged the authority of the committee appointed to oversee the registration and revalidation exercise.

It was gathered that the confrontation started when the Chairman of the registration committee, Barr Chukwuemeka Okereke, wanted to declare open the commencement of the proceedings. He was accused of undermining the state leadership led by Mrs Stella Chukwuma. It rose to a chaos when the acclaimed founding members of ADC in the state said the registration should be overseen by them instead of a committee appointed by the national leadership.

It led to the suspension of the exercise following protests from both camps. Organisers had to lock the hotel gates of the hotel to avoid mishaps. However, the presence of security personnel prevented the chaos from escalating.

A chieftain of the party in the state, Hon David Williams, attributed the disruption to the handiwork of some mischief-makers whom he claimed were sabotaging the party’s growth in the state.

According to him, “There was some attempt by some miscreants to truncate the efforts being made by our chairman. At the end of the day, we came out victorious. Our message is that ADC is here to stay, and we are not going to allow anybody to use proxies to hijack this party. They want to introduce money politics into the party, but we the faithful will resist it.”

Another chieftain of the party, Senator Gilbert Nnaji, agreed that there was some internal wrangling within the party, but expressed optimism that the crisis would be resolved amicably.

He said, “There is a little misunderstanding somewhere between the chairman of the registration exercise and the state chairman. As stakeholders, we are going to resolve the issue to make sure the registration goes on smoothly.”

He explained that while the committee claimed it was mandated to set up structures for the exercise across the local government areas, ADC hierarchy in the state thought that the materials should be handed over directly to them to coordinate registration at the ward level.

Nnaji said the party leaders would convene further meetings to harmonise the positions of both sides. He said the party had only two weeks to complete the nationwide registration exercise. Other party stakeholders nonetheless insisted that the e-registration process had already commenced online, while efforts were ongoing to reconcile the feuding factions and prevent a full-blown leadership crisis in the Enugu chapter of the party.