Some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors have said the purported endorsement of a Nasarawa state governor, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, as the consensus candidate by President Muhammadu Buhari as lacking in substance.
There was a media report(not in Blueprint) that Buhari had endorsed the lawmaker as the party’s national chairman ahead of its convention recently rescheduled to March 26.
According to the report, the convention would only ratify Adamu’s choice as the party chair.
But different sources close to some governors in the north central, northwest and southwest told Blueprint that the “story is a fabrication of a notable governor in the northwest.”
“This is a rumour and it still remains one. President Buhari never endorsed anybody. We were in a meeting with the president recently and this issue never came up.
“In fact, I must also add here that even the Nasarawa state governor is not with Senator Adamu on this. The governor never hides his support for Al-Makura. A prominent governor in the northwest is behind this scheming and it won’t work,” said one of the sources privy to an informal meeting of some five governors in Abuja Thursday.
Meanwhile, a group, Concerned APC North West Stakeholders, has warned some members of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), particularly those from the North-west, to tread with caution in order not to destroy the APC.
In a statement Thursday, the group stated that the warning became necessary following the gloating of the North-west governors after they name-dropped Buhari in their bid to tap Adamu, the head of the party’s Reconciliation Committee, as a consensus national chairman.
The group’s national convener, Alhaji Sani Abubakar, who signed the statement, expressed regrets that “dropping Mr. President’s name to promote one candidate over the others for the chairmanship position of the party is against the popular clamour by well-meaning party members for the next APC chairman to be from the North-west.”
“The stakeholders have become aware that members of the PGF from the North-west who championed this errant position are acting out their own greed and personal agenda, which is that each of them is hopeful of emerging the running mate to an eventual APC presidential candidate from the South.
“It is most unfortunate that people who currently (individually) hold the mandate for the wellbeing of millions of people as governors are unable to subjugate their selfish interest for national interest, party loyalty and the long-term stability of Nigeria’s democracy. It is tragic how these individuals overheated the polity simply out of desperation to occupy a position that is not zoned to their areas,” the statement read in part.
The group stated that, “These persons from the north-west looking for the position of vice president that, going by our history as a nation it is well known that the best the region could get after 2023 is the national chairmanship position of the party.”
“All those pushing for a candidate from the North-central to be made a consensus chairman of the party, which has earlier been zoned to the North-west, are traitors and seem to only be interested in rubbishing Mr. President’s legacies in office by appending his name as mark of approval to their plans,” the statement further added.
