Governors and top leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, are split over the presidential aspiration of the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The division is affecting zoning of National Working Committee, NWC, and National Executive Committee, NEC, offices ahead of the February 26 National Convention.
A top party source told our correspondents over the weekend that contrary to perception, Asiwaju Tinubu is not desperate to become president in 2023 but wants agreements to be honoured.
“Top founders of the party know that President Buhari promised to hand over to Tinubu in 2023. Now if they don’t want to fulfill that promise, they have to sit down with Tinubu and discuss.
“Tinubu has to be respected. You can’t treat him as nobody and expect him to keep quiet and do nothing. He is a democrat,” the source said.
Although the APC governors have taken charge of the party, they are yet to agree on Tinubu and a chairmanship candidate. “Some of the governors are for Tinubu and are watching to see how things unfold.”
According to the source, President Buhari is not averse to a South-easterner succeeding him and may be eyeing a minister from the zone as his successor.
President Buhari, penultimate week, said his choice of ‘favoured successor’ would shock people, a reason he said he would keep the identify of the person secret.
‘Likely successors’
Some names have been mentioned as the likely favoured successor. They include former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan; Transportation Minister, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi; Labour and Employment Minister, Dr Chris Ngige; Dr Akinwunmi Adesina; Timipre Sylva and Mr Emeka Nwajiuba, among others.
On 2023 presidency, the source said the party must find a way to assuage the feelings of Tinubu and some founders of the party, who are gunning for the presidential ticket because “promises were made to them during the formation of the party.
“If the party cannot fulfil the promises in 2023, the party has to meet and plead with them.
“If the party treats them with contempt, they are ready to stand their ground and it will affect the party in 2023 elections.”
Meanwhile, the immediate past Director General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum PGF, Salihu Moh. Lukman, has lamented the dwindling democratic fortunes of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, saying the party was now more of an election platform without any ideological bent.
Lukman in a statement in Abuja yesterday, described the reality as very disturbing, noting that “APC today, wasn’t the APC of the period 2013 to 2015.”
He said outside President Muhammadu Buhari, there were very few elected leaders in APC who were still committed to the founding vision of the party to provide leadership to change Nigerian politics.
He said: “Given where the nation is coming from under PDP, changing Nigerian politics would require departure from requiring citizens to be blindly loyal to elected leaders.
‘’It should require that citizens and party members are free to disagree and criticise elected leaders.
“In other words, politics of change should produce elected leaders who should be highly tolerant and where possible even accommodate disagreements and criticisms as part the process of decision making.
“These may sound like wishful thoughts. The truth however is that our dear APC is being held captive by some few leaders whose interest is only about imposing themselves as candidates for elections.
“So long as that is the case, it means what we have as APC today wasn’t the party negotiated and produced out of our legacy parties.
“Rather than the envisioned party, which allows for internal debates and disagreements among party leaders and members, based on which there could be negotiations and agreements, APC today has been diminished to only an election platform, which is what the founding leaders and members wanted to change.