APC NEC: Fate of Ganduje hangs in balance as stakeholders want Tinunu to zone Chairmanship to North Central {POLITICS}
By KEMI KASUMU
Following President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s picking of a date in September 2024 for National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), stakeholders in the North Central have asked the president to ensure the position of National Chairman of the party is zoned back to the zone.
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Our checks revealed the feelings of the stakeholders are that their geo-political zone had not spent its time when President Tinubu truncated it as he removed Senator Abdullahi Adamu, over political reasons, as soon as he took over from former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023 and so want the party’s highest office back.
Also, the stakeholders believe that serious problem emanating from intra-party differences exist which require to be addressed using the NEC meeting. We, however, gathered that the crisis being passed through by APC currently is beyond the party as it is more of a dented image that is fast growing and popularity that has now moved from soaring to the lowest of the base due to bad governance its government has unapologetically and irretrievably inflicted on Nigerians since its second government came to power on May 29, 2023.
The DEFENDER reports that with the NEC meeting now in the pipeline to decide a date for its national convention, the fate of the current National Chairman of the APC, Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, is uncertain that he continue on the seat.
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This is as grapevine has it that, in the thinking of Tinubu, the thought about using Ganduje to take Kano and other parts of the North especially the North West in his quest for a second term can no longer hold as it is now clear that all the claims that the former governor controls the politics of the Nigeria’s political headquarters, Kano, are no more than cosmetics.
Observation of the President’s body language, despite the many attempts to use the Federal Might as seen in the tamperings with electoral, judicial and traditional institutions to take the very influential and politically viable states in the region once governed by Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio’s grandson, Sardauna Ahmadu Bello,, the APC’s inability to achieve those aims is not only demoralising but making Tinubu’s continued dependence on Ganduje as pillar of the party in Northern Nigeria no longer feasible.
One of the things The DEFENDER found out will happen by the President’s decision to convene the NEC meeting of the party will be to simply ease Ganduje out from office as APC National Chairman. How it will happen is one question that remained unanswered as at the time of filing this report afternoon of Thursday August 15, 2024.
This, however, is as pressures continue to mount from both the integrity community of Kano, where the ruling New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) in power are asking President Tinubu how he came about making Ganduje National Chairman of his party and still believing that the man – with many answered questions hanging around his neck about his alleged “misuse, abuse of power and misappropriation of state resources” as Governor of Nigeria’s commercial nerve Centre – can secure enough popularity to earn him the confidence of Northern Nigerian people to repeat their Muslim-Muslim vote for him like they sentimentality did in 2023.
Among the latest of those pressures are the stakeholders of North Central, who in a meeting on Thursday August 15, 2024 asked Tinubu to use his office to push APC Chairmanship back to the zone. At a separate forum, the North Central APC people believe their insistence on urgent need for the NEC meeting led to why Tinubu picked a date in September.
Addressing the Thursday’s stakeholders meeting, Mohammed Saidu Etsu, who is former APC National Chairmanship Aspirant for the 2022 Convention, said: “Gentlemen of the press, It is my pleasure to address you on this all-important matter of our party’s forthcoming NEC meeting.
“As you may be aware, the leader of our party, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved a National Executive Council meeting of our party for next month.
“We commend the president for finally initiating the meeting which we believe is long over due. There are many outstanding issues in party that are of utmost priority to our zone and our position on it is well documented.
“In setting agenda for the NEC meeting therefore, we are appealing to Mr. President to use his good office to resolve the issues regarding the zoning of party’s chairmanship back to the North Central zone where the seat originally belongs.
“The North Central Zone as a collective is the party’s strongest zone politically today. Five out of the six states in the zone are controlled by the party. This is a National high by percentage.
“We urge Mr. President to consolidate this acceptance of our party in the zone by rewarding the hardwork of our party members in the zone. But more importantly, by ensuring that the Chairmanship of the party zoned back to the North Central, the president will ensuring that the yearlong injustice to the zone is righted.
“Since the last reorganisation of the party, all the zones where positions where adequately replaced except for the North Central that has still been left in the cold. We want to also take our seat in the comity of our peers.”
How the APC, under Tinubu, intends to sail ship of leadership of Nigeria through the troubled waters ahead of it, with the hardship, hunger and anger being suffered by the people without hope for solution either immediately or in distant future, remains a question that only Nigerians can determine at the appropriate time, it was gathered.
