POLITICAL UPDATE: How President Buhari, 19 APC Governors saved Nigeria’s ruling party from untimely death

*Gov Sani Bello backed for Chairman by 19 governors – El-Rufai

*Exposes court order planned to collapse APC by 2023

*Speaks on 4 unnamed governors sponsoring fake news against party

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

“(Displaying the court order on the screen) This is the court order. This court order was obtained in November (2021).  A member of the party went to court to say there must be no convention until his case against the party is disposed of, which can take months or years.  And the lawyer of the party and the lawyers of Mai Mala Buni went to court and agreed with the petition and got this order.  Nobody knew about this order.”

The early morning meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday March 6, 2022 of some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) among whom were Chairman of the Progressives Governors’ Forum, Senator Atiku Bagudu, Chairman Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Governor of Kaduna State among others and some other leaders of the party, will not be wished away in a hurry as the last safety measure for the Nigeria’s ruling political party.

It was a meeting that finally exposed the roles of some alleged fifth columnists within the party, who, if not detected on time, almost peaked in their plot to put the promising party on the verge of collapse whereby, it stands the chances – despite being confident winning in 2023 as it projects – of losing all the victories it will have achieved as witnessed in Zamfara State and nail the coffin of the nine-year-old party.

Details of these were given by the Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, when he appeared on a widely viewed television interview programme monitored by The DEFENDER in Lagos, on Wednesday March 9, 2022.

On the television programme, specifically Channels Television’s Politics Today, Governor El-Rufai laid bare the whole hitherto shrouded truths while confirming that Alhaji Mai Mala Buni was actually asked by President Buhari to vacate the office of National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the APC. Buni has since been replaced with Governor of Niger State, Senator Abubakar Sani Bello as the Acting National Chairman of APC.

In the 46 minutes 40 seconds interview, Governor Nasir El-Rufai indicated that some 19 of 23 APC governors fully backed the new development in the party while the remaining four, who he did not name, were said to be those that were not fully on board and who were responsible for the fake and twisted news about the parties in recent times until the President Buhari’s intervention.

Explaining, the Kaduna governor gave step-by-step details of how, due to sensed irregularities in the events towards the national convention, he and other APC governors as well as leadership of the party met with President Buhari two times before the Sunday March 6 early morning meeting that held before President travelled to London.

Confirming that the zoning announced Wednesday was approved by the party leadership, he explained how initially President Buhari was not interested in influencing the nomination and election of who becomes the national chairman.  He added that “we forced” the President literally to tell them who he wanted so that they, the APC governors and party leaders, would support that person and that the President then said they should look at North Central being that, all the persons he was seeing were all from the geopolitical zone.

Stage of trouble

“We began to get signals that there are some elements in the party that are bent on ensuring that the National Convention does not take place. You would recall that this national convention was to take place in November last year, December, finally a date of February was announced and no concrete steps were taken to actualise that, even with the unilateral announcement of March 26 as the date of the convention without consulting us as governors.

“We began to get signals that there are certain elements in the party’s leadership as well as some governors, who are working together to ensure that, that March 26 is missed and if it is missed, the following Saturday is the beginning of Ramadan, which means that we are not likely to have a convention until May, after Sallah.

“And if we are having convention in May, based on the (Independent National Electoral Commission) INEC timetable, because we have already lost one month, we should be conducting primaries. So, this gave us so much concern and we demanded to see Mr. President as Progressive Governors’ Forum, along with the leadership of the party.

“We met the President on the 22nd of February and laid out to him steps that are needed to be taken, if we are to have our convention by the 26th of March. One of the steps for us is to know where the party’s National Chairman will be coming from, because that will then determine the zoning of the rest five other zones.

“The President gave us his word he said, “I’m reluctant to get involved in who should be the national chairman but, look at North Central, all the candidates I’m looking at are in North Central.”

“From then on, we did a zoning formula, we presented that zoning formula to him, he signed off on that zoning formula. It was supposed to be sent to Progressive Governors’ Forum chair and the party will ratify it. Then we didn’t hear anything.

“We went back a second time and met with the President on the 1st of March to say that “the zoning formula you signed off on, has not been sent back to the Progressive Governors’ Forum, instead, there is another list circulating with even names for four offices.”  Names had already been chosen, which we know is not the President, who was reluctant to even nominate who is the chairman of the party because, he said, “I am not contesting, I want to handover this party to a strong leadership that will ensure that it continues. So I’m not interested in who is national chairman unlike in 2019 when I was contesting”, Governor El-Rufai quoted President Buhave to have said at one of the earlier meetings.

He continued: “But we said, “Mr President, all of us are state governors; we have an influence on who is the state Chairman of the party. So, it is only sensible and logical for us to give you the opportunity and guide us on who you think we should support as National Chairman.” We forced him literally to do that. He didn’t want to do it.

“So, when a list started going round with four names; Deputy National Chairman North, Deputy National South, National Secretary in addition to the National Chairman, we knew that there was something fishing and we went to see the President and the President looked at the zoning formula that we had sent to him before. He said, “This is the correct zoning formula, he signed and dated it 1st of March. This is the same one that has now been ratified by the Zoning Committee.”

Zoning formula with clarity

“There was nothing fishing. It was a very clear zoning formula in the sense that all the positions held in the last eight years by zones in the South were flipped to the North.  If you look at National Chairman North Central, it is because North Central is now swapping with South South.  All the positions of North Central in the last eight years went to South South.  So, all the position of South South went to the North Central and all the positions of North East in the last eight years went to the South West so, that is why the South East has National Secretary.  All of the positions of the South West went to the North West.  That is why North West now has National Organising Secretary.  It was simple, clear and logical,” El-Rufai said.

Asked if the President specifically tell the governors while he (El-Rufai) was present at the meeting about his choice of the Chairmanship Candidate, he said:

“Yes, he did” but that “I am not allowed to reveal but he has told us who he prefers as the Chairman of the party.  Because the traditional of the APC is that the President decides on who he’s more comfortable with as the Chairman of the party and we try to achieve consensus around that person.”

Same treatment for Oshiomhole

On whether the consensus now being mulled was the case in the past with Adams Oshiomhole, the governor replied in the affirmative.

“It was the case with Oyegun, it was the same with Oshimhole and we are doing the same thing in this case.  And the reason why I cannot tell you who the President prefers is because we are still doing the work of reconciling and getting all the aspirants in North Central to step down for the President’s indicated candidate.”

Asked if the party will be going to Eagle Square with a consensus, he said, “for chairmanship”, continuing, “We normally adopt consensus for National Chairmanship of the party.  Other positions will be contested but, usually, National Chairman, and to some extent, National Secretary we do that by consensus.  That is how it has always been if you look at the past conventions we have had.”

Governor Nasir El-Rufai, through these submissions on the television interview programme, finally laid to rest all the hearsay about many untrue claims linking to the President about a particular former governor of Nasarawa State being touted in the media as the President’s preferred candidate.

Did President Buhari ask Gov Buni to go?

Yes and no, El-Rufa replied and continued, “That is not really what is important but I’m trying to give you the narrative of how things happened at the second meeting of 1st March where the issue of zoning was … No doubt about the zoning and we said convention committees must be set up,” he explained alluding to the earlier arrangement perfected for the party’s national convention to hold hitch-free but which was not followed.

“So in that meeting, the President gave three directives and said: “This is the zoning formula that is fairest to everyone. I will sit with all the aspirants from the North Central and try to get them to agree to the consensus around one candidate or aspirant, when I come back from my trip.”  Thirdly he said, “Swear in the state chairmen.”  The state chairmen were elected months ago. They have not been sworn in and because they have not been sworn in, the state executive committees have not been functioning and he said: “Swear in the state chairmen so that they can go and swear in their executive committees’ members and then fix a date, give notice for an Emergency National Executive Committee meeting.” One week notice is required and the President directed that it should be done.

“In that meeting, Mai Mala Buni was not present but one of the members of the caretaker committee, Governor Abu Sani Bello of Niger State was there.  He was mandated to pass this information to the caretaker committee to effect these actions.  This was on the 1st of March, Tuesday.  Wednesday, Thursday, of course the President left on Tuesday for Kenya, no action was taken.  The national chairman, Mai Mala Buni, travelled abroad on medical treatment and handed to Governor Abu Sani Bello as Acting National Chairman.  Sani Bello now said, “Let’s implement the President’s directives.”  The National Secretary just refused him.

“So, we heard about it.  We converged again to Abuja.  On Sunday before the President left, we had an earlier morning meeting with him and said, “Mr. President, there is no movement on this thing and we were hearing that there was a court order.  We now found out that there is one.

“(Displaying the court order on the screen) This is the court order. This court order was obtained in November (2021).  A member of the party went to court to say there must be no convention until his case against the party is disposed of, which can take months or years.  And the lawyer of the party and the lawyers of Mai Mala Buni went to court and agreed with the petition and got this order.  Nobody knew about this order.  It was never brought to the caretaker committee It was sort of hidden as a hidden nuclear weapon to destroy the convention, which further made us believe that there are fifth columnists in that party that want to bring this party down.  Because, if we do not have an elected executive committee of the party and we go ahead to have primaries, we are likely to have our candidates lose all their seats as we saw in Zamfara State,” the Kaduna Governor expose hidden agenda.

As to what how a member of the party at that height could go to court to do what he described, Governor El-Rufai said: “We don’t know.  It is counter intuitive.  You can see the order. It is real.  It took us a lot of efforts to go through all the enrolled orders in the FCT High Court, Federal High Court before we found it. And when we reported to the President and said no action had been taken, he said: “Look, Governor Abu Sani Bello must take over on Monday” and that we should use whatever legal means necessary to make sure that this convention is delivered.  It was the President’s order to us as governors. He said: “I’m relying on you to do what is legally necessary to vacate this order, Abu Sani Bello takes over the leadership of the party, reconstitutes all the committees of the convention and ensure that the 26th of March date is sacrosanct.”

Gov Bello has President’s backing?

Governor El-Rufai said, “He has the President’s full backing and the backing of, at least, 19 of the 23 APC governors and deputy governors.”

On whether other governors are with Governor Buni, he said, “There are some governors that are not fully on board.  They are the ones who like to fix stories to say this one has resigned, this one has not resigned.  You get all kinds of stories in the social media but what I’m telling you are the facts at this situation.  And since on Monday when Governor Abu Sani Bello took over, you can see we have made substantial progress.  Convention sub-committees have been formed, they have been sworn in today (Wednesday 9th March) because the Convention sub-committees formed by the earlier leadership had 1,700 members, which is half of the capacity of Eagle Square.  Now we have compact convention sub-committees, they have been sworn in, they are working and now we are more confident than ever that the convention will take place,” El-Rufai said.