A fresh wave of discontent is sweeping through the Cross River State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as ward executives, vice chairmen and chapter chairmen escalate their protest against what they describe as entrenched financial injustice and systemic neglect under the party’s current state leadership NEGROIDHAVEN has garnered.
At a meeting convened Tuesday at Hogis Royale, Calabar, grassroots officers openly lamented the “humiliating” welfare conditions imposed on the party’s frontline mobilizers. According to disclosures at the gathering, ward executives — numbering 27 per ward — are often handed ₦20,000 to share, with some officials going home with as little as ₦500 monthly.
Comrade Frankline Egbai, Chair of the Forum of Ward Chairmen, described the treatment as a fundamental threat to party cohesion.
“How do you expect a ward chairman who receives ₦500 in a month to convince anyone to join the party? This is not empowerment; it is humiliation,” he said.
The welfare crisis is tied to a broader financial dispute already documented in a communique submitted to Governor Bassey Otu by 35 APC chapter chairmen and secretaries. The communique alleges a disproportionate allocation of funds from nomination form sales during the 2023 elections. Whereas 36 members of the state executive reportedly took ₦40 million, 5,778 ward and local government officials received a combined ₦9.2 million.
Describing the sharing pattern as “gross injustice,” the forum further alleged that several remittances from the APC National Secretariat remain unaccounted for. The chairmen have demanded: the immediate payment of outstanding stipends to ward and LGA officials, direct disbursement of future stipends to chapter chairmen at source, and a revised 70:30 funding structure favouring the grassroots.
Youth leaders have also aligned with the agitation. Ward 8 Youth Leader in Calabar South, Bassey Oyo Ekpenyong, said those who “delivered victory in 2023” are now being sidelined in the party’s internal reward system.
With grievances converging at both the welfare and financial transparency levels, the crisis has now crystallised into a full-blown grassroots revolt. Ward executives, vice chairmen and chapter chairmen have collectively restated their call for the resignation of the state chairman, Barr. Alphonsus Eba, accusing him of high-handedness, transactional leadership, physical violence and financial opacity.
As the standoff deepens, insiders observe that the dispute is gradually redefining power blocs within the APC Cross River — with grassroots officers now positioning themselves as a formidable force in internal party politics.
