Ameh Takes Over As New IPAC Leader

…Promises To Ensure Council's Independence
BEVERLY HILLS, August 25, (THEWILL) – The National chairman of Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA, Chief Peter Ameh, Tuesday, emerged the new Chairman of Inter-Parry advisory council, IPAC, with a promise to make the organisation an independent group that will not be under the influence or control of any political party or Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Ameh's election followed the decision of the appeals committee which nullified the last month's election of the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM, Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim.

It will be recalled that shortly after the election, Ameh had petitioned the IPAC election appeals committee, alleging that the election which was held at the conference room of INEC was marred with some irregularities as the representatives of the Alliance for Democracy, AD and All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, were barred from taking part, leading to the ordering of a re-run by the appeals committee.

All the National chairmen of the 16 political parties who were preset at the re-run voted for the PPA chairman while his opponent, Bashir Yusuf Ibrahin, absented himself while insisting that he was the authentic chairman that is being recognised by INEC.

Speaking before the election, the Chairman of the Electoral Committee, Ganiyu Oseni Galadima, who is also the chairman of Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, regretted the decision of Bashir Yusuf to boycott the re-run, noted that the re-run had to be conducted for the position of chairman following the decision of the election appeals committee which nullified the election of the PDM chairman and ordered for a fresh election.

But Chief Peter Ameh while speaking after his inauguration by the immediate past chairman of IPAC, Dr. Yusuf Tanko, pledged to reach out to members of all the 29 registered political parties to protect the country’s democracy.

He stated that IPAC under his leadership would endeavour to be an independent association that will not be under the influenced or control of any political party or the Election Management Body.

Ameh said, “My election today is in the face of truth and justice. It has taught me a big lesson that we must be fair to each other and treat all Nigerians as equal irrespective of tribe or religion. We will be fair to all political parties and bring every body on board for the interest of developing the Nigerian democracy.

“We will move IPAC out of the control of INEC or any political party where we can confront the challenges of poverty and hunger that are standing against the development of our electoral process by collaborating with every government agency to ensure that we eradicate all the corrupt tendencies that had negatively affected our electoral process.”

In his remarks earlier, the former chairman, Tanko Yinusa, who handed over to Ameh pledged to work with the new leadership of IPAC to fast-track the process of reconciliation of all aggrieved political parties for the purpose of protecting the development of democracy in the country.