Presidential Support C’ttee Suspends Akpabio as National Coordinator

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The Minister for Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio has been suspended by the Presidential Support Committee (PSC), a political support group of the All Progressive Progressives Congress (APC) as the National Coordinator.

Akpabio was suspended for inactivity and poor leadership by the national delegates at their National General Meeting and Merit Award held yesterday at Barcelona Hotel, Abuja.
The National Facilitator of the committee, Mr Gideon Samanni and the organisation’s Director of Media, Dr Kalaini Mohammed, announced the suspension in a joint statement.
They said the suspension was necessitated to ensure the survival and revitalisation of the organisation.

PSC raised an outcry that the group was gradually drifting into oblivion even though it supported the APC and the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. It attributed the development to Akpabio’s failed leadership.

“We are worried that in an attempt to bring back PSC to glory, whose members have committed themselves to the successful re-election of the President in 2019, the National Coordinator, whose appointment as minister was through the platform, has abandoned the organisation and its members,” the statement said.

The PSC insisted that those who worked for President Buhari and the party must be carried along adding it would not hold back and watch the PSC that was positively established regress as a result of inactivity.

The group accused Akpabio of being a clog in the wheel of progress of the APC, while adding they had laboured diligently to refocus the organisation to enable it achieve its objectives.

“PSC leadership and its members are open to democratic ethos of dialogue, compromise and consensus but leadership has retarded the organisation from moving forward.

“Senator Akpabio as National Coordinator was appointed as Minister for Niger Delta through the PSC platform but the organisation is worst hit by his actions,” the statement said.

The PSC also accused Akpabio of sabotaging a national conference, mooted late last year, with the theme: Fairness, Equity and Justice: Panacea for Peace, Unity and Development on the pretext of shifting the conference to January 2021.

It emerged that although PSC retains interest in the Buhari administration, it has been stymied from further progress midway into the administration they worked to ensure its emergence.

“Even to offer advice, defend government policy and constructively criticise where necessary has remained a huge challenge, due to failed leadership”.

The delegates also adopted a new constitution that has 33 articles with several sub sections.

The amended constitution, which was presented by PSC National Legal Adviser, Ejikeme Ugwu, provided for the group to be led by a National Chairman, assisted by a board of committees drawn from all zones of the federation.