Some governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have launched an underground move to shift next Saturday’s national convention of the party.
The aim is to buy time with a view to perfecting their strategy to install a candidate of their choice as the next national chairman of the party.
The governors are already mounting pressure on state chairmen of the party to push for the shift agenda, The Nation gathered last night.
Preparation for the convention is already on hold at Buhari House, the APC national secretariat.
However, the cash-for-postponement plan appears to be unattractive to the state chairmen, many of whom are unwilling to play ball, sources said.
It was also learnt that some APC governors have extended their search for a new national chairman to a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara.
The Dogara project unfolded on Thursday night.
Some of those pushing the Dogara agenda, it was gathered, want the APC presidential ticket to go to the North-Central in 2023 instead of the chairmanship.
It was gathered that some other pro-Dogara supporters are determined to frustrate some chairmanship aspirants from the North-Central.
All the governors, party leaders and stakeholders were awaiting the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from Belgium last night to take a final decision on the convention and the choice of a new national chairman.
Before Buhari jetted out to Brussels for the EU-AU Summit, there was a consensus on ceding the slot to the North-Central.
Going by the plans of the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), APC ought to release the list of sub-committees for the convention today.
But investigation in Abuja revealed that some governors were still plotting the retention of the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led CECPC to conduct 2023 election primaries of the party at all levels.
The affected governors are understood to have infiltrated the rank of the state chairmen of the party to push for the postponement of the convention.
Sources said some of the governors were dangling cash at the state chairmen to have a deal on the postponement of the convention based on the following grounds: