APC chair: Stakeholders seek consensus as ex-C/River Gov Ebri joins race
Aformer governor of Cross River State, Clement Ebri, has joined the race to succeed the APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, even as stakeholders from the South South seek for a consensus candidate.
Ebri has now joined the likes of a former governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, the Minister of Science and Technology, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu and a former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani.
Mr Ebri was Cross River state governor on the platform of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) from 1992 to 1993.
In 1999, he contested in the primaries of the defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) for the state governorship ticket and came second in the exercise.
The stakeholders, under the auspices of the APC Grassroots Youths for Change, lauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention by halting the illegal tenure extension of the Chief OdigieOyegun-led National Working Committee (NWC).
The national president of the group, Mr Orlu Henry Manuchims, said he was concerned at the timing of the forthcoming national convention, whose outcome could polarise the party rather than unite it ahead of the 2019 general elections.
To address this fear, the critical stakeholders in the APC had launched a search for a new national chairman that would replace Oyegun whose tenure ends by June.
The stakeholders said they were searching for someone whose candidature would serve as a rallying point for the vast majority of the party leaders and members.
They argued that Ebri could be a good material for the job.
Ebri, a chieftain of the APC, left the ANPP in 2006 and joined the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) and became its national chair from 2008 to 2009. He resigned after the former PPA governor in Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).