The Chairman of the National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ahmed Makarfi, has accused the All Progressives Congress of being afraid to hold its national convention.
He said fear was the reason why the ruling party had not been able to organise a national convention for many years.
Makarfi spoke in Abuja on Tuesday when he received the chairman of the Steering Committee on the Development of Strategic Plan for the National Institute of Legislative Studies, Aminu Shagari, and members on a courtesy visit.
“You have prayed for a successful convention of the PDP. We are not afraid. We are not the APC, we are not afraid to hold convention. We are not
afraid to hold meetings and convention because we are democratic,” he said.
But the APC has dismissed the allegation by the opposition PDP that it was afraid of holding its national convention.
The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said the claim that the APC was afraid of conducting its convention “is an empty platitude” lacking in substance.
Abdullahi said, “We don’t respond to this kind of empty platitude lacking in substance. Did the PDP say why they are saying we are afraid? If they said we are afraid, afraid of what or who? We won’t dignify their assertion with a response.”
Makarfi had earlier told his guests that he was aware that the procedure for legislation was long and cumbersome, adding that the voting pattern could however be improved.
The former governor of Kaduna State said that the process of lawmaking “is not so democratic and the problem facing Nigeria goes beyond ‘nay’ and ‘yea’ because the moment we begin to reduce it to that, very sensitive issues that have telling effects on this country can be so lazily settled, we will face the consequences down the line.”
In his response, Shagari praised PDP for its contributions to the building of democratic structures in the country.
Comments
Post a Comment