THREE committee members for the ward congress of the All Progressive Congress in Delta State have escaped being lynched by angry aspirants.
The development, it was learnt, forced APC stakeholders to call for a postponement of the exercise in state to allow thousands of aspirants, who paid for forms to collect and return same.
The PUNCH gathered that there was confusion at the party secretariat in Asaba on Thursday evening, as hundreds of angry aspirants across the state, who besieged the place with bank tellers, left without getting their forms.
Many aspirants expressed frustration over their inability to collect forms.
However, the three-man committee was said to have escaped being lynched by aggrieved aspirants.
Mr George Egbe, who heads the committee, lamented that upon his team’s arrival in Asaba from Abuja, he was met by an aide to the state Chairman, Nick Ovuakporie, who requested that the materials be given to him for safe-keeping.
He said his team was threatened by one Lucky Ajos after he refused their request to take possession of ward congress materials.
Egbe said the leader of the police escort team from Abuja ordered them to remove their belongings from the vehicle at gunpoint and zoomed off with the materials.
He said, “We were later informed that only three bags of the six bags containing the materials for the election were dumped at the party’s secretariat late that night.
“We got clearance from APC headquarters to commence sale of forms on July 24, but ran out of forms on July 26, and the extra forms promised by the APC national headquarters to make up for the shortage is yet to arrive.
“As at today, 29th July, thousands of tellers were presented to me and there were no forms to issue out. In the cause of explaining, violence erupted; we had to escape to avoid being lynched.”
The APC ward congress is billed to commence on the July 31 nationwide.
