President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday warned leaders of the APC to desist from name-calling and backstabbing ahead of the oncoming March 26 Convention.
Saying the convention must hold, Buhari said the party must remain steadfast and maintain its unity if the party is to continue in the path of victory and its dominance at all levels.
Buhari, who spoke in a statement issued by his spokesman, Garba Shehu said APC must be careful not to be like PDP which fell as a result of disunity.
According to him, “Look at the once-powerful, main opposition Peoples Democratic Party now enfeebled and adrift and learn lessons in disunity, mismanagement and corruption. They failed in 16 years in power and a failure as opposition.
“Yes, we are entitled to our own share of dissent and intra-party discord. These are common in all parties, left and right all over the world. But parties splintered by competing egos destine themselves to the worst possible fate.”
The president said as the country prepared for the long run-up to the 2023 presidential election, all expected a robust debate on the issues that matter and that what is going in the APC should be a reflection of this, not the infighting being witnessed.
He said there must be no more distractions ahead of the convention to choose new leaders, adding that this is a party that had been in existence barely for eight years, becoming the dominant party because it had thrown open its doors to defectors from other parties, big and small.
Buhari added: “This alone, in addition to the fact that we didn’t start on the note of arrogance of power, nor see government as a vehicle for self-aggrandisement, to be held at all costs, but a vehicle to bring development to all without discrimination-political, ethnic or regional to our dear country made this success possible.
“Given all that is at a stake, we can expect contests into offices as we are now faced with to be heated although candidates and their promoters for party offices are not so much debating policy differences but differences of management, personality, character, and suitability for the most important leadership roles in our country and therefore the continent.”
The president said it was equally clear that over the last week or so, the internal management affairs of the APC had been afforded generous media coverage – over and above its importance to the voters of Nigeria.
He said it was important to ask what benefits the poor were getting during the period of intense negative coverage.
