I’m contesting for APC National Chairman to strengthen internal democracy – Shinkafi

A former National Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Sani Shinkafi said he is aspiring for the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to
to strengthen internal democracy which amongst the causes of crisis in the party and the polity.

Shinkafi, a native of Zamfara State who stated this while declaring his intention at a press conference in Abuja, said if elected as National Chairman, he will reposition and re-organise the party based on its philosophy of social democracy.

To achieve this, the former secretary of the Board of Trustees of APGA said he and his team will have to do a couple of things differently in the day-to-day management of the party affairs, while interfacing with all those elected on the platform of the party at all levels.

“For me, it is fundamental to be able to have a membership drive of the party at the grassroots across all the electoral wards and polling units throughout the country, it is important that we must ensure that we have an authentic and verifiable certified true copy (CTC) membership registers that can be checked and verified by members and even non members of party.

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“The leadership of our party under our watch will maintain the credible membership register with the credible membership register it will help to eliminate abuse, corruption and manipulation in the conduct of intra party election from unit, ward, local government, state and National levels, it will also create a credible platform for conducting direct primaries which will afford every member of the party primaries at all levels rather than the indirect primaries, delegate election.

“We will ensure that members of the party are given a robust sense of belonging and control. The beauty of this is that members of our party will own the party and will be ready to work to ensure the success of the party at all levels in the 2023 general election and at all time, we will promote and strengthen internal democracy within the party.

“We will organize activities at regular intervals across the six (6) geo political zones where issues and challenges on politics, security, economy and agriculture will be discussed by the party leadership, elected, appointed officials, and members of the party at all levels”, he said.

Shinkafi said under his stewardship, APC will create a platform for setting national development agenda and security, economic recovery plans that will create employment, improve personal income of Nigerians and increase Gross domestic product (GDP) in Nigeria.

On zoning, he said: “As a real party man, if the party decides to zone the National Chairman to the Southeast or South-South or Southwest I have no objection. If the party decided to zone it to North-west, North-central, or North-East, I have no objection because I’m a disciplined person.

“I’m also a real party man and I want to avoid internal wrangling and faction but I’m telling you, if the party decided to throw the ticket open to the North I will give the first bite.”