TheCable

Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in diaspora have asked the party to give zonal recognition to its chapters.

The request was part of the recommendations by the APC diaspora chairmen forum to the party’s constitution review committee.

According to a statement issued on Tuesday, Lawal Ayoola, secretary general of the forum, said diaspora chapters want zonal recognition for their members to be included in the national working committee (NWC) of the party.

“As each country chapter has traditionally been accorded state level status, we request that the Diaspora be fully accorded a zonal caucus level recognition equivalent to that of geopolitical zone in Nigeria,” Ayoola said.

“We want the constitution to equate and place the diaspora chapters, as a unit, in each country at par with and of equivalent status with a State Chapter in Nigeria.

“That the constitution should also allow for the diaspora chapters, as a unit, to be represented in the National Working Committee of the APC.”

The forum also asked the party to allow duly accredited and eligible diaspora members to contest elections under the platform without further requirement of endorsement by a ward or state branch chairman in Nigeria.

“Our membership of the party in Diaspora should be enough, without the need to be made to feel that we have to register twice in the party (in our countries of abode and back in state in Nigeria),” he added.