The seeming non-committal posture of some presidential aspirants of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) towards the activities of the party’s presidential standard-bearer, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is gradually becoming a source of concern to the party’s hierarchy, New Telegraph can authoritatively report.
According to multiple sources within the party, the ‘coldness’ of some key stakeholders, especially some former presidential aspirants like Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan; former Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi; Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, among others, to the party’s runup to the 2023 polls, is a crack that the party must urgently mend.
Tinubu, the party’s presidential standard-bearer, defeated former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and 12 others to clinch the sole ticket at the presidential primary which was held at the Eagle Square, Abuja on June 7.
After the primary, Tinubu immediately visited some of the defeated aspirants, including Osinbajo, Amaechi, Lawan, but they appeared indifferent to some of the party’s activities thereby fuelling reports of not being in sync with Tinubu’s presidential bid.
However, it was averred in some quarters within the party that Tinubu and the APC did not really appease and consult some of the frontline aspirants and their supporters after the contest, especially on the choice of his running mate and the composition of the presidential campaign team, but rather preferred to be running the show with northern APC governors.
A purported reconciliation meeting between Tinubu and the 22 other presidential aspirants fixed for last week Wednesday was aborted about 24-hours to the parley amidst reports of a lukewarm response from those invited.
In a statement issued by one of the aspirants and convener of the aborted roundtable, Dr Nicolas Felix, he said the now postponed meeting was to address the disturbing gulf between the candidate, the aggrieved aspirants and the effects on the ruling party ahead of the kick-off of the campaign.
In the aftermath of the presidential primary, VP Osinbajo, who placed third, has not commented on the election, but Amaechi, who resigned his position as Transport Minister to contest the election, alleged that some delegates were induced with money to vote at the primary.
Amaechi made the allegation at an event in July to mark the 60th birthday of Eugene Ogu, the General Overseer of Abundant Life Evangel Mission in Port Harcourt.
The former governor who was the runner-up at the presidential primary, said: “God should save the ordinary Nigerian because they are the problem. Those who voted at the APC primary, who are they? The ordinary Nigerian. The small money they got solved their immediate problems.”
Urging for a common front ahead of the 2023 election, Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council and Plateau State Governor, Mr. Simeon Lalong, gave a hint that the party would appease all aggrieved stakeholders in the party while speaking in Abuja last week during the unveiling of the Tinubu/Shettima Door- To-Door grassroots mobilisation campaign vehicles donated by the Northern APC State Assembly Speakers, President Muhammadu Buhari had recently told state governors, who are members of his party, APC, that his government would not interfere in the 2023 elections.
However, speaking with New Telegraph, a member of Tinubu’s kitchen cabinet, who prefers to be anonymous, said the APC presidential candidate is in good terms with VP Osinbajo, Amaechi, Lawan, among other stakeholders in the party, adding that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has not yet declared the campaign process open.
He said: “There is no need heating up the polity over nothing. Asiwaju is in contact and touch with Osinbajo, Amaechi and others. Our party is one and Asiwaju has specialised tasks for all those you mentioned. Of course, the party is mulling setting up a reconciliation team that will address every known and unknown animosity.
“I know when the campaign starts later this month, VP Osinbajo will be the face of the party with the Christian community and Amaechi should lead the party in the South-south. We are poised for victory and all these talks of internal crisis are clearly unfounded. How can our vice president be against our party and his former principal?” (New Telegraph)
