APC Governors divided over February Convention date

Governors who are members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are divided over the convention of the party slated for February, this year, Daily Trust learnt on Tuesday.

The top echelon of the party in November last year met with President Muhammadu Buhari, where they agreed that the party’s national convention should be held next month.

Though a specific date was not picked in February, aspirants have sprung up for various offices with many groups staging protests over alleged plot to shift the convention and again extend the timeline of the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led caretaker committee.

The Buni-led committee was inaugurated in June 2020, after the dissolution of the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC), and saddled with the responsibility of reconciling aggrieved members and organising an elective national convention. But the committee had its timeline extended twice without achieving these.

An impeccable source told our correspondent in a telephone interview yesterday that the bickering and division among the governors led to the postponement of their meeting slated for last Sunday.

He explained that the governors belong to different blocs in the party and were divided as some were opposed to the proposed February convention.

He said the governors were supposed to meet and decide on the matter on Sunday, but failed to do so because of lack of a united front.

According to him, the governors would meet tomorrow to take a position on the convention issue and make a presentation to President Muhammadu Buhari for a way forward.

Another chieftain of the party and elder statesman, Chief Chekwas Okorie, told Daily Trust that the chances of the party organising a convention in February were bleak.

The reason is simple. They have to give INEC 21 days’ notice before a convention will be considered to have met that aspect of the requirement of the Electoral Act.

“And no such notice or letter has been transmitted to the best of my knowledge. And some governors, from the information I have, are meeting on Wednesday this week to be able to make a presentation to President Muhammadu Buhari on the matter,” he said.

But the APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, told Daily Trust in a telephone interview that, “The letter is time-bound, so when it is time, we will send it.”

Another stalwart of the party, Chief Jackson Lekan Ojo, said, “The APC governors are divided into three blocs. Some are backing Bola Tinubu, some are with the major cabal while some are with a particular governor in the North Central pursuing his presidential ambition.

Meanwhile, the APC reconciliation committee led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu on Monday met with the feuding camps in Kwara State.

The protracted crisis rocking the state chapter of the party had lingered following disagreement between the faction led by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the camp of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.

The minister was absent when the committee visited the two warring groups.

The committee which arrived the state on Monday afternoon had paid a courtesy visit to Governor Abdulrazaq saying it has a mandate to listen to and reconcile all the sides within the state chapter of the APC.

Adamu said the committee would meet first with the aggrieved members and then listen to the party executives, stakeholders and elders led by the governor to strike a balance towards reconciliation. (Daily Trust: Text, excludes headline)