Buhari Rejects Governors’ Objection To Adamu As APC Chairman

President Muhammadu Buhari has rejected the opposition of governors in the All Progressives Congress, APC to the emergence of Senator Abdullahi Adamu as national chairman of the party.

Thisday reports that Buhari threw away the opposition of the Governors when he 21 of the 22 governors in the State House, Abuja on Tuesday.

The meeting with the state chief executives was called to discuss the forthcoming national convention of the party scheduled for March 26, among other issues.

APC stakeholders from the South-east pushed for the office of National Secretary, while the South-west, where the office was originally zoned, was still divided over the party position.

However, under the latest agreement reached by the Governors yesterday at their meeting after the meeting with Buhari, all the previous positions in the party held by members from the North-west would now go to those from the South-east; all positions that were held by those in the North-east would go to those in the South-west; and all positions previously held by those from the North-central would automatically go to those from the South-south. Therefore, the position of party secretary and chairman were dealt with.

It was agreed that Adamu would be National Chairman.

The president’s only preference was Adamu as National Chairman, and for the rest positions, he asked the stakeholders to go and decide.

Some of the APC governors at the meeting wanted the March 26 date proposed for the party’s national convention to remain as planned, but some aspirants for the party positions wrote to the president to halt plans for the convention.

Although it would have been Buni’s preferred plan to hold the convention and presidential primary same time, that is no longer feasible given INEC’s timetable and time constraint.

At the meeting attended by 11 of the 22 APC governors at the president’s office, Buhari was said to have turned down the governors’ request for him to have a rethink on his support for Adamu as national chairman of the party.

The president, who met with the governors shortly before departing for Nairobi, Kenya, to attend a four-day international summit, said no to the attempt by the governors to get him to change his mind on the former Nasarawa State governor. He was said to have bluntly refused to shift ground, when the governors advanced their reasons against the ranking senator emerging as national chairman.

The governors were said to have expressed their desire to allow all those that have signified interest in the national chairmanship of the party to run, which the president rejected.

The engagement provided an avenue for South-east APC governors to complain about the zoning of the office of the national secretary to South-west rather than their region.

Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) and Governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, who led the team to the meeting with Buhari, was said to have told them that it was too late to amend the zoning formula.

In spite of the position of the chairman of PGF, the South-east governors resolved to take their agitation for the party scribe to a meeting of the APC governors that was scheduled to hold next Tuesday at Kebbi State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro, Abuja.

The Tuesday evening’s meeting, expected to be attended by the 22 APC governors, will take another look at the totality of the forthcoming national convention with regard to the zoning arrangement for the offices.

Apart from Bagudu, other APC governors at the meeting were Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti), Aminu Masari (Katsina), Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Yahaya Bello (Kogi), Hope Uzodinma (Imo), Gboyega Oyetola (Osun), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Sani Bello (Niger), Umar Ganduje (Kano), and outing deputy governor of Anambra State, Nkem Okeke.

Buni absent at meeting

At the end of the meeting with Buhari, the governors affirmed that there was no plan to move the national convention from the scheduled date of March 26, in Abuja. This was despite the tight timeframe provided by the timetable of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released for next year’s general election.

There had been speculations that a section of the party was pushing for the postponement of the national convention so that both the election of the national executives and the primaries to select its candidates for the 2023 elections could be done simultaneously.

Speaking with newsmen after the meeting with President Buhari where he rejected the opposition to Adamu as chairman of the APC by the governors, Gov Bagudu assured that the party would maintain the March 26 date for the exercise. He said the governors met with the president to congratulate him for signing the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and also on the victory of APC in some of the by-elections conducted over the weekend.

On whether the idea of further postponement of the convention was discussed at the meeting, Bagudu stated, “Last week, we were in this hall (villa), about 20 APC governors, and this question came up and we clearly said we came to discuss the national convention, which is slated for March 26, and are working hard to ensure that on March 26, we have our convention and elect our national officers and that remains the case.”

He dismissed speculation that the APC state chief executives were still divided over the direction of the party especially, after what seemed to be an altercation among them as they emerged from the meeting with the president.

Source: Thisday

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