Bayelsa APC Crisis: Party Disowns Elders Forum

John Odigie-Oyegun and Timipre SylvaThe All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State has disowned a group of party members claiming to be elders of the party in the state, saying such a group was alien to the party constitution and the national secretariat of the party.
In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Friday by the State Secretary of the party, Daniel Marlin, the APC said genuine elders of the party in the state were busy doing all they can to help resolve the crisis within the party in the state.
The statement said those claiming to be elders of the party were nowhere during the formation of the party and asked party faithful to disregard such group as they were not working for the interest of the party in the state.
The statement reads: “It has come to our notice that a certain group which calls itself the ‘Bayelsa APC Elders Forum’ have been going to press lately to complicate the ongoing crises in our state. We wish to disown such a group as they are merely a make-shift lot drafted to do the bidding of their paymasters.
“This group was absent in all the many battles of the Bayelsa APC including our difficult embryoic phase when we would have needed such a group going by the sheer elegance of the name they chose to call themselves. The group is also not known to the national leadership of the APC. It is also not backed up by the constitution of our great party the APC.
“It is very curious; a shabby group in levels below obscurity would spring up just to discredit the Bayelsa state APC and its hard-bitten leadership.
We are in touch with the genuine elders of our party and they have generously offered the advice and wisdom expected of Elders, not this rowdy gang tagging themselves as Elders of Bayelsa APC.
“Party faithfuls (sic) and the general public should therefore disregard publications and actions from this food-is-ready group as they are nothing but recruits made up of friends and former aides of Chief Timipre Sylva”.