More than 4,000 delegates are expected to attend today's (Saturday) ruling party convention in Eagle Square to elect new national and zone officials.
The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) will hold the highly anticipated National Convention today (Saturday) in Abuja.
The party’s new national and zone officials will be elected at the convention previously billed for 26 February but shifted to 26 March. The Convention is also expected to approve the amendments to the party constitution and ratify the activities of the Executive Committee/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
The party held congress, state and local governments last year. More than 4,000 delegates from 36 federated states and the FCT are expected to attend the convention. Delegates will select a 22-member National Working Committee (NWC) from 169 candidates for various positions to take over the leadership of the nine-year-old party from the CECPC.
The 12-member committee, chaired by Governor Mala Buni of Yobe State, was formed on June 25, 2020, after sacking the NWC led by Oshiomhole Adams, to run the party and pack the convention within six months. It couldn’t be done until now. The main attraction of today’s event was the election of a new chairman.
Seven party members purchased expressions of interest and nomination forms to compete for the position, categorized to North-central. The aspirants include two former governors of Nasarawa State and serving senators, Abdullahi Adamu and Tanko Al-Makura. The others are the former governor of Benue and the current Minister of Special Tasks, George Akume, senator for East Niger, Sani Musa, the now-defunct former Deputy Chair of the BPK, Saliu Mustapha of Kwara State and an aide to the governor of Niger, Mohammed Etsu. Although he is not from the north-central region, Abdulaziz Yari, the former governor of the northwestern state of Zamfara, also entered the race.
However, following the direction of the party’s leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, on Wednesday, there are indications that the next chairman and other party officials will emerge by consensus. For the chairman position, Buhari reportedly supports Adamu. Several candidates have reportedly kicked against the consensus option preferring to issue it at the convention.
If this happens, the selection of new officers promises to be interesting given their mixed power and popularity.
SKJ