All Progressives Congress (APC), has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has the right to endorse former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, as the next National Chairman of the party in the forthcoming party’s National Convention.
The party also said there is the possibility that the congresses and National Convention may be shifted in view of observations made by some of the governors that the timetable was too tight and made no room for errors. Similarly, Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, corroborated the party’s position, saying that Buhari’s endorsement of the former governor will not foreclosed ambition of other chairmanship aspirants.
Addressing newsmen shortly after a closed-door meeting between the APC governors and National Working Committee (NWC) at the party National Secretariat on Wednesday in Abuja, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said Buhari’s meeting with some governor on Tuesday night was personal.
He said: “The meeting was called to emphasize to the state governors the need to ensure that congresses were held in a very transparent manner and free and fair. “We are aware that some governors have been making statements which we believe are giving the impression that we don’t intend to hold congresses in particular states.
“So the meeting was to emphasis to the governors that we want congresses in a very transparent manner and ensure that the processes are free and fair”. Speaking on Buhari’s endorsement of Oshiomhole, Governor Ganduje said: “There is no imposition at all, everybody is free to contest just as everybody is free to hold an opinion on who should lead the party.
I think that there is no case of imposition because it is not a guideline and not part of the constitution. “Just like every other person, Mr. President has the right to air his opinion but that does not mean he should stop any person who will like to contest from contesting.
Mr. President’s opinion is not constitutional and it is not a non-constitutional opinion as well. “He just voiced out his thought which will serve as a guideline to some and otherwise to some.
The issue of being undemocratic does not even arise. There is what we call guided democracy and we regard what the President said as such. If that is what will make the party stable and avoid the fallout after the convention like we saw in the PDP, it will be better for us”, Ganduje stated.
“The governors of the APC just finished our meeting with the NWC and we discussed some issues concerning the congresses and the national convention.
We discussed the issue of the timetable and time limit for the congresses and convention and we decided that NWC should review the timetable because in the previous timetable, the Ward and local government congresses are too close.
Also speaking on the plan to shift the convention date, the party’s spokesman said: “The observation was that the timetable as currently constituted was determined because of the Ramadan and we want to be sensitive to the feelings of Muslims who will be fasting during Ramadan and we wanted to, as much as possible avoid conducting any political activity during the period of Ramadan’’.
