By James Shim
The Director General, All Progressives Congress (APC) Gubernatorial Campaign for Revd. Fr Hyacinth Alia, Dr Frederick Ikyaan has opened up on the wranglings and strategies the party was making to achieve victory in the 2023 general elections in Benue State.
The DG, who spoke with The Voice Politics exclusively in Makurdi recently said the party, in spite of the internal skirmishes has remained a family with the sole agenda to win elections.
Dr Ikyaan, who also spoke on the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the party denied that it was a step towards islamisation of the country.
“That too, some of us have looked into it closely and discovered that it was a strategy that people involved have to employ, in order to win elections.
“It was not a step towards islamisation of Nigeria as many have been made to believe. So here too the idea was to have a strategy, in order to win elections,” he said.
He, however, did not dispute that the party was without internal squabbles.
“Wranglings are meant for settlement and human beings have been given the capacity to respond to challenges that come their way. And settlement is dependent on the mutual consent of the parties that are involved. All of us are members of the APC with one agenda, to win elections.
“So whatever it will take for us to win elections we are ready to put it on the table. And it is also a natural thing that there are wranglings in the party at the instance of primaries. It’s not anything new or strange and we also have a mechanism to settle whatever the misunderstandings are.
“Many of our aggrieved members have seen the need to sit on the round table and look at those things that have divided us at a time. I will not necessarily let out what the plans are because it is an internal mechanism.
“But I assure you that the process has kick-started already, to settling aggrieved parties so that we have one house to approach the 2023 elections.
“We can not afford to give it out on the table of sentiments because certain expectations were not met for certain individuals. We sympathize with them for feeling aggrieved as rational human beings,” he maintained.
On the possibility of escaping the sledge hammer of the many legal actions instituted against the APC governorship candidate, Dr Ikyaan said: “I would have left that to our team of lawyers but consulting them, they have given us assurances that it will not deter us. And I believe what they say with examples from the previous cases that have been thrown out that they were just mere busy bodies. Our team of lawyers are on top of the situation.”
Dr Ikyaan also told The Voice Politics that people of Zone C, who have been protesting the processes and result of the primaries that they have valid argument.
He said, “in politics people have different expectations and aspirations. While one part of Zone C is grieving that they have not been treated justly, others have teamed up with us and hailed the decision of the party.”
“So it is really difficult to carry every one along on whatever decision that you take and we can only appeal to those that are aggrieved to join us and see reason why the decision has to be taken.