There are fears within the All Progressives Congress (APC) that the leadership of the party may bow to fresh pressure to postpone the party’s national convention billed to hold next month.
LEADERSHIP findings revealed that despite the resolve by the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the party to proceed with the exercise slated for February, some party big wigs are insisting that it should shift the national convention to a later date.
The move, it was learnt, is to perfect plans to conduct the presidential primary and election of National Working Committee (NWC) members simultaneously at the convention ahead of the 2023 general election, a position earlier canvassed by chief whip of the Senate, Orji Uzor Kalu.
In a letter to the APC caretaker committee chairman and Yobe State governor, Mai Mala Buni, the former Abia State governor had in December last year implored the party’s leadership to tread with caution by not conducting the convention in February as planned.
The party’s caretaker committee however decided to stick with the February date by setting up a sub-committee on budgeting as well as relevant structures for the successful conduct of the national convention next month.
National secretary of the caretaker committee, Sen John Akpanudoedehe, had told journalists at the end of the committee’s meeting at the party’s national secretariat in December last year that the meeting deliberated on the planned national convention and resolved to set up sub-committee on budgeting and other relevant structures for the convention.
He said the decision was part of resolutions reached at the meeting, which reviewed the party’s activities over the past one year and deliberated on various national and party matters.
But apparently jolted by the announcement that the party leadership has yielded to the demand of party members angling for the convention to hold next month, influential members of the party are in a last minute bid to convince the committee members that it would be better to shift the exercise to a time when it would be appropriate to combine the election of the NWC members with the presidential primary.
The arrangement, according to a source within the party, is to ensure that a new leadership of the party does not emerge before the presidential primary.
He said the fear is that with the controversy over zoning of the APC presidential ticket for the 2023 general election still raging and the crisis over the state congresses still not resolved, it would be dangerous to proceed with the national convention next month.
The source who did not want his name in print said, “Those pushing for the postponement of the convention are unsettled by fear that a new leadership from the convention might distort certain plans ahead of the party primaries and this may thwart the current political calculations among party bigwigs.
“There are still some belligerent issues, especially the zoning of national offices and the 2023 presidential ticket of the party, which are behind the bid to shift the convention. The controversy over zoning of the APC presidential ticket for the 2023 general election is another area those insisting that the NWC election and the presidential primary should hold simultaneously are guarding against. If not properly managed, it can plunge the party into a fresh crisis.
“Don’t forget that some members of the party at the state level are not happy with the way the congresses in the states were conducted. What they call consensus were ploys by party chieftains to put their structures in place ahead of the primaries and the fear is that a new leadership at the centre may destabilise that order.
It was however learnt that in spite of the pressure, the Governor Buni-led caretaker committee appears poised to stick with the February date in conducting the national convention.
Another source close to the committee told LEADERSHIP that with allegations that it was planning to extend its tenure, the caretaker committee is not ready to shift the date of the national convention beyond February.
The source who spoke with our correspondent in confidence said, “In a governing party like the APC, there are bound to be diverse interests. Just as there are those asking the committee not to go beyond February 5 to hold the party’s national convention, there are also party members who want the exercise to be postponed to a later date. It is left for the party leadership to take its stand.
“I don’t think the committee is ready for any postponement. Governor Buni is first a serving governor of a state. He was called to take up the assignment of repositioning the party after the crisis that almost set the APC on the path of implosion. Now that he has achieved that feat, he has nothing to lose if the convention holds. So, I don’t think the committee will yield to such pressure from anybody to shift the date for the national convention”.
But those who seem dissatisfied with developments within the party are warning against any further delay of the convention.
They warned that if the national officers are not elected on time and given enough time to settle down, the party may find itself in the same position it was in 2019.
To this effect, director-general of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Moh Lukman, yesterday cautioned the APC caretaker committee chairman, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State, not to allow all his good work be destroyed by heeding to the call to postpone the party’s national convention slated for next month.
“With the emergence of the CECPC in June 2020, His Excellency Mai Mala has done an excellent job by bringing down tension within the party. Sadly, all the good work of the CECPC under His Excellency Mai Mala is about to be destroyed once it yields to the temptation of staying longer than February 2022,” he stated.
In an open letter to all the APC leaders on Monday, Lukman said the party leadership was working on a lie that will end up foisting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) again on Nigerians in 2023.
He noted that the leadership of the party is relying on the fallacy that anybody the party imposes on Nigerians during the party’s presidential primaries will sweep the poll in 2023, adding that such a lie cannot stand.
Lukman stated: “The only reason why some leaders, perhaps including the members of CECPC, are attracted to campaign for postponement for the Convention is the deceptive belief that any candidate who emerged, whether elected or imposed on the party can win the 2023 elections. This is a big lie!”
He said such a lie would only pave way for PDP’s return to power, adding that the ongoing plot to postpone the scheduled February convention of the party will spell doom for the ruling party.
The APC chieftain berated former Abia State governor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, and others over calls to postpone the national convention.
He described as ‘illogical’ Kalu’s recommendation for postponement of the convention, even as he warned of a repeat of the Zamfara experience of 2019 if care was not taken.
Warning against a repeat of what happened in Zamfara State in 2019 where the party lost woefully to the opposition PDP, he said it was very difficult to exonerate the caretaker committee from the campaign to postpone the February convention, because if it was not interested in the shifting the convention it will not be difficult for the committee to make formal announcement about the date and venue of the convention.
Lukman said, “It is very difficult to excuse the CECPC from the campaign to postpone the February Convention. If the CECPC is not interested in the postponement of the Convention from the agreed February 2022 date, why is it difficult to make formal announcement about the date and venue of the Convention?
“Statutorily, by the requirement of the Electoral Act, the party is expected to serve at least 21 days’ notice of the Convention to INEC; which basically means that if the Convention is to hold any day before February 28, 2021, the notice to INEC should be given on or before February 7, 2022. That being the case, the temptation could be to argue that there is more time. Some reminders would be necessary at this point.
“Once that is the case, we would have succeeded in making the 2019 Zamfara electoral disaster a national phenomenon in 2023. Is that what the CECPC members under the leadership of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni want to subject the party to?”
Asking the APC leaders to wake up to the responsibility of providing the needed political leadership to the country, Lukman said, “No one should imagine that agendas set in 2014 or 2019 are sufficient to respond to contemporary challenges, which post 2023 governance will be expected to respond to. If anything, it may also be important to emphasise the fact that to respond to contemporary challenges facing the country would require massive investment in human capital development in the country.
“This will call for a deliberate and aggressive policy to mobilise large scale public investment to rebuild public schools at all levels. The correlation between collapse of education since the mid-1980s, rising levels of unemployment and insecurity are very glaring. As a party, we must come up with practically convincing answers, which should form the basis of public support by Nigerians to guarantee victory in 2023 elections.
“The burden of responsibility to strengthen the capacity of the APC to put itself in a vantage position to commence internal negotiation around all these issues is on the CECPC, especially, the Chairman, His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni.
“Inability to discharge this responsibility or avoid it by toying the path of a deceptive campaign for postponement of Convention can only spell doom for the APC and return Nigeria to the hands of those who laid the foundation for all the challenges facing the country.
“By way of an appeal to APC leaders, as much as the question of who emerges as the candidate of the party is very important, it is not only who emerges as a candidate of the party that can win the election. But how united are party leaders behind the candidate will be a more determining factor. President Buhari, with all his mass support in the Northern part of the country, may not have won the election in 2015 without the unity of all APC leaders from every part of the country. All APC leaders must be reminded that, there is no one political leader in the country that enjoy convincing mass support of any region of the country.”
Selfish, Personal Interest Must not Override Party’s Interest – Obahiagbon
In the same vein a chieftain of the APC and former member of the House of Representatives, Hon Patrick Obahiagbon, cautioned the party leadership against allowing personal and selfish interests to override the interest of the party.
Obahiagbon who was chief of staff to former national chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, advised President Muhammadu Buhari and the party’s Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee to propound a pathway to the party ahead of the 2023 general election.
He gave the charge in Abuja in a letter of commendation to the chairman of the APC caretaker committee, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State.
A statement director-general, Press and Media Affairs, to the caretaker committee chairman, Mamman Mohammed, quoted Obahiagbon as stating in the letter: “The party interest is more paramount than parochial and self-centered agitations from a microscopic few.
“The facts are indubitably too plain to be contested, Your Excellency, that our great party was largely fractious and tottering at its perilous precipice and brinks, when both destiny and history beckoned on you to provide durable leadership for us all.
“It’s the considered opinion of the majority of our party members that Your Excellency has not just only steered the party away from avoidable cataracts and icebergs but that you have also enviably returned our party to its winning ways and glorious path”.
He further said the inspiring leadership style and consultative approach of Buni in addition to the “coruscating humility, visceral connectivity with the rank and file of the party and disciplined inter-personal skills has commended itself to all and sundry.” (Leadership NG)
