The All Progressives Congress (APC) may be heading for implosion and the immediate cause is the alleged announcement of Senate President Ahmed Lawan as consensus presidential aspirant by the National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.Adamu made the announcement at the meeting of National Working Committee (NWC) on Monday in Abuja.
However, his adoption of Lawan as consensus candidate is against the position of 11 APC northern Governors, who endorsed that power must shift to the South after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure.Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state a major aspirant rejected the move and insisted other aspirants must be given a level playing ground to compete.
Adamu told the National Working Committee that he arrived at the choice of Lawan after consultation with President Buhari.
But APC Organisjng Secretary, Suleiman Argungu, said the purported choice of Lawan was simply Adamu’s opinion.
He said the NWC supports the position of Northern APC governors on power shift to the South.
He said the choice of Senate President Lawan as consensus aspirant is not the position of the NWC but just an opinion of the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu.
Speaking to reporters after the NWC meeting, Argungu said: “Like you are all aware, just recently, the northern governors met and agreed that the leadership of this country under the All Progressives Congress should go to the South. And equally the Southern governors affirmed that. So, we as members of NWC, we are also with the governors on what they have said.“Some minutes ago, some governors from the North have also gone to see the president and they have briefed the press that they are still on what they said with regards to power shift to the South.”
Asked if he was categorically rejecting what the national chairman said about Senate President being the consensus candidate,, Argungu said: “I just told you that it was just information that he gave us but it was not an issue that had to be debated on the floor of the NWC. It is an information and all of us are entitled to our opinion, we are all democrats.
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But pesident Buhari had denied picking a consensus candidate, insisting that all aspirants will meet at the poll as delegates would decide who flies the flag of the party in 2023 presidential election.
Faroug Aliyu, APC chieftain, corroborated Buhari’s stand insisting that the president had spoken and no amount of embellishment can cover the general and acceptable opinion which has been adopted by the president.
Farouq, who featured on the channels program, politics, on Monday alongside Orji Uzor-kalu, the Chief Whip of the Senate, confronted the Senator to rather speak about his own opinion as anybody is free to his or her opinion.
According to Farouq, who openly declared for a southern candidate, “no annointed candidate, our resolve is southern candidate. The president who is the
super delegate has not annointed anybody and as a democrat, he has spoken well.
“It is fair and logical for a southern candidate to emerge and I will certainly vote for a southern candidate at the convention,“ he said.
But Kalu, who was a bit rattled by the anchor's probing questions insisted on Lawan as the consensus candidate.
Speaking further, Kalu said in the absence of Lawan, who is from North East, then it should go to South East.