APC National Convention: Party To Print One Chairmanship Form As Governors Endorse Adamu

The Progressive Governors ‘ Forum has finally acquiesced to President Muhammadu Buhari ‘s choice for the position of the National Chairman of the party, THE WHISTLER has learnt.

The forum is made of governors under the APC.

Buhari had reportedly anointed Senator Abdullahi Adamu as national chairman, which is a sharp shift from his previous choice of long time political associate and former governor of Nasarawa State, Mr Tanko Al-Makura.

Interestingly, Al-Makura, who was the only governor under the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, formed by Buhari was credited to be the sole financier of the party, a development that made him very close to Buhari.

Sources said the former governor’s preference for the National Leader of the APC, Mr Bola Tinubu, a leading aspirant to succeed Buhari, may have turned the president away from him.

Al-Makura and his state governor, Abdullahi Sule, both members of the CPC bloc in APC, have endorsed Tinubu.

The anti-Tinubu feeling amongst the top echelon of the APC , it was gathered, is responsible for the preference for Adamu as national chairman and Ken Nnamani as deputy national chairman, South and Mr John Akpanudoedehe to remain as the party’s national secretary.

With the party’s structure firmly in control of Buhari, it will then be easy to decide who emerges the party’s presidential candidate and other candidates across the states.

According to sources at the PGF, majority of the governors had given their support to Buhari’s anointed in a short meeting before he departed for Kenya, forcing the removal of Mai Mala Buni as caretaker chairman.

It was learnt those who have not endorsed the President’s move are afraid to oppose him being that majority of them will be seeking second term as governors. And they are mostly from the South West geopolitical zone, Tinubu’s political fortress.

According to a source with adequate knowledge of the development, the Niger State governor, Mr Abubakar Sani Bello, was picked because of his unalloyed support for Buhari, and would easily placate senator Sani Musa, who was initially endorsed by him and some of his fellow governors.

Thus, the party will print only one form for the Chairmanship position to enable members vote in affirmation, a member of the caretaker Committee confided in THE WHISTLER on Tuesday.

He revealed that governors that have endorsed Buhari’s anointed aspirant are those of Imo, Niger, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Osun, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Gombe, Borno, Yobe and the Anambra deputy governor.

A serving member of the House of Representatives on the platform of the party told THE WHISTLER that “It’s undemocratic for the party to be run this way, where a single man with a single vote decides the fate of the party.”

According to him, “Buhari should play a fair game. It appears the president doesn’t care what happens to the party after him,” he said on telephone on Tuesday.

But a former PGF Director General, Mr Salihu Lukman countered his reference to the president’s anti-democratic posture saying the president meant well and should be commended for trying to re-enthrone sanity in the party.

While blaming Buni and Akpanudoedehe for the crises in the party, he urged party members to “remain vigilant, confident and courageous to continue to support and engage all party leaders to take all the painful decisions, which are needed to ensure that the March 26 APC Convention restores all the democratic structures of the APC and put the APC back on the path to electoral victory in 2023.”

He added that, the “APC is a party, which in its short period of existence has proven that leadership is about trust. Once a leader betrays the trust invested in him, the needed democratic process and structures will be activated to reorganise and produce new leaders who will honestly serve the party.”

The party source further informed that once the president returns before the convention, everything would be sorted out and the party will be on the path of peace.

“There’s going to be a regular contact with the president in the UK. There’s basically nothing to do because the committees for the convention has been set up.

“Single forms will be printed for most positions especially for the post of the National Chairman and deputies, Secretary and few others, so that’s it.

“The party is even working on giving affirmations to all positions because these offices have been zoned. The zones will share offices among the states that make up the zones and the whole thing is sorted out,” he said.