Chairman of Northern Governors Forum and Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, dismissed fears that the ruling party will collapse at the end of President Buhari’s tenure.
“From the progress report read by our chairman, and several reports, we are seeing the tremendous efforts the Federal Government is making. And again, we’re already going around commissioning projects here and there in the various states.
“Although, you are not specific as to which reason will make us not to come back again, there is no doubt, based on what the Federal Government is doing, there is every hope that this party, this government will move beyond our president. I think that is his efforts, and that’s what he has been saying that by grace of God, this government will move beyond his tenure.”
Eighteen of the governors that were in attendance at the meeting are those of Yobe, Ekiti, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Cross River, Kaduna, Lagos, Borno, Niger, Gombe, Osun, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Kwara, Kano, Imo, Kogi, Ogun, and Plateau states.
The outgoing deputy governor of Anambra State was also in attendance.
The governors of Ondo, Katsina and Zamfara states were not present at the briefing
The meeting was also attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha and Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari.
APC’s founding fathers from the 4 legacy parties should decide new APC exco — Okorocha
To resolve the crises ravaging the APC, former governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha( APC, Imo West) has said that the founding fathers of the party should be given key positions and carried along in running the APC.
Speaking with journalists yesterday in Abuja, Okorocha said that founding leaders of the party across the original four blocs should be allowed to nominate interested party members for sensitive positions such as national chairman, secretary, women leader, youth leader and organising secretary, etc.
The four legacy parties that came together to form the APC were the Congress for Progressives Change, CPC led by President Buhari; Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP led by Dr Ogbonnaya Onu and a wing of the the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, led by Rochas Okorocha.
Okorocha said that while President Buhari as the leader of the CPC bloc should be given the honour of deciding who becomes the next National Chairman of the party, others like Senator Bola Tinubu of the defunct ACN bloc, Ogbonnaya Onu of the defunct ANPP bloc, himself as leader of the APGA faction then, should also be honoured by deciding who should be the National Secretary and other important positions.
Okorocha argued that sharing the party’s positions on that basis will help in preventing the ship of the party from hitting the rocks.
“Our party is a great party; APC is a great party, what is wrong with our party is that we have forgotten how we all started, we should not make the mistake of the PDP and I think that will be corrected with the party’s convention now slated for March 26 , 2022. What we need to do is to go back to basics, so that we adhere to the culture of unity and equity the party was known for at formation in 2013.
“Our initial position was that all positions would be shared among these four parties and DPP that came with few members and after the merger, the New PDP joined.
“Now, the wisest thing for all of us to do is to go back to the founding basis and distribute the political positions as we did it that time and there will be no rancour and it will be very peaceful,’’ he said.