POLITICS
APC National Convention may Cause Implosion— Presidential Aspirant
By Jude Opara, Abuja
Ahead of the February 26 National Convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a presidential aspirant on the party’s platform, Alhaji Adamu Garba, has advised the party leadership to put its house in order before the forthcoming convention, warning that the ruling party could explode if some contentious issues are not addressed.
Garba insisted that the party should not go into the national convention unless some contestations are resolved.
As part of the panacea, he said the party should go for a consensus ahead of the National Convention.
Adamu who spoke to newsmen on Thursday in Abuja said he wants to be President to fill the gaps which President Muhammadu Buhari has not been able to do achieve because of age and the people around him.
While reacting on why he initially called for the postponement of February 26 national convention, Garba said: “Seriously, if we do not put our house in order, and pay serious attention to this contesting interests, we might end up having implosion. There are other people waiting for this implosion. I am sure you are monitoring what is happening in the party. There is this emergence of mega party and it is deliberate this time around. It is a combination of strong interest. They are interested in breaking both the APC and PDP to emerge and win elections. This is ongoing.
“The strongest broker to that success is the success of APC. That means the merger party will do everything possible to see APC break so that they can gain from it. So, we should not allow them. Even if it warrant giving extral time, even if it means giving more months for the CECPC to regularise the fake membership within the party, we will be able to do that. If we fail in this convention, it will be difficult to win power.
“You cannot go to war field without an effective Generals who has the support of the majority of his lieutenants. If the lieutenants break themselves from within, and house divided against itself cannot stand. And that is exactly what we are trying to avoid.”
On what he will do differently from what President Buhari has done, the APC chieftain said: “I think what we intend to do is to consolidate on the successes of President Muhammadu Buhari. He has done his best giving the number of challenges he met and especially on the issue of insecurity, even though we may want to condemn.
“We have so many issues in the North-west, and we hope to have peace in the zone too as we move forward. I believe the president became a prison of the Nigerian system because it is design in such a way that no matter how great or excellent you become, if you get to the centre especially the presidency without extensive plan to fundamentally transform the country, from its bases, roots arrangement, it might not be easy.
“So that gap, I believe, is one the president is unable to achieve maybe due to age and some constraints around the people surrounding him. But ths is the area we intend to be able to achieve when we get there.”
On why he wanted the National Convention shifted, the presidential aspirant said: “What I wanted to achieve is a peaceful and united party as we confront the 2023 general elections.
“We have a very serious internal wrangling in the party. You know, we talk about camps; ANPP, ACN, CPC, you have APGA. And the nPDP. And lots of democratic parties that have joined to form APC. If you go back to the states, there are issues between the state governors existing and the state legislators. And again, you have the issues between sitting governors and former. There are a lot of confusions.
“So, when you have this kind of confused arrangements, if you pay attention to only reconciling the governors, you are only addressing one part of the issues. There are so many parts of the problems. And this is the kind of situation we have found ourselves in 2013, 2014 that PDP crashed and APC became net gainer of it.
“So, we should avoid this kind of situation. And we now have a caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee under Mai Mala Buni that was instituted by the President himself and off course court of law validated that it is legal. And this guys are doing everything possible to stabilize the party. And so far, we have gain so much members into the party that we have ever gotten. And we have achieved so much stability that we can dream of.
“So, you have to find way to give them a level playing field. And this interest needs to be attended to for proper reconciliation. And since we are now approaching the convention ground, these warring parties with all their arsenals, then if we are able to achieve the unity fine, we can go to the convention. But if we are not able let us have extral opportunity for the main time for this CECPC to succeed in bringing and mainstreaming the majority stakeholders of the party before we go public show.
“I don’t believe as a party, we should go into convention with contestations. Of course, it is democratic to contest outside, but inside the family affair, we have to be able to sit together and agree that this is our leader. We all trust him. So, going into the convention ground with contestation is not solid for us. We have to wait and reconcile, filter our candidates across board, ensure unity list and once we go there we anoint them. It is a family affair.”
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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