Ahead of the All Progressives Congress’ February 26th national convention, Governors of Jigawa, Kebbi and the Ekiti States have been fingered to be behind the plot to impose candidates on the party through the backdoor.
The APC Youth Development and Solidarity Forum said Governors Badaru Abubakar, Kayode Fayemi and Atiku Bagudu have perfected plans to impose Senator Sani Musa as the party’s national chairman.
Recall that President Buhari had reportedly rejected the proposal of two governors to adopt a certain aspirant as the next national chairman of the party
It was gathered that President Buhari advised the governors to take their proposal to the party’s Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), their fellow governors and other party leaders for consideration.
The back door approach of the two governors is said to have widened the cracks in the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) which is scheduled to hold a make or break meeting today in Abuja on the zoning of party offices.
And speaking at a press conference today in Abuja, Chief Tobias Ogbeh, the secretary-general of the APC-YDSF warned the governors against presenting a “fake” excos list to President Buhari against the will of the faithful.
According to Ogbeh, the ultimate goal is to hand Senator Musa the party chairmanship position in return for a Bagudu-Fayemi presidential ticket.
The group, however, vowed to resist any attempt by the governors, particularly Badaru, Bagudu and others to subvert the will of the party.
Ogbeh urged all APC members to reject such plan to shortchange the rest of the country with the governors’ “devilish and demonic plan for the party”.
While calling on delegates to closely monitor the convention, the group urged Governor Mai Bala Buni to openly renounce the evil plot.
Read full statement below:
Gentlemen of the press, we are constrained to invite you for this press briefing following our discovery of a plot to sabotage the All Progressive Congress (APC) by some desperate individuals that are working internally to implode the party. Ordinarily, affairs of the APC should be left as its internal matters except that the people we are raising this alarm about today are not really after the APC. What they are after is the soul of Nigeria, which they want to own for their evil intent.
All the evil that this cabal has perpetrated in the past months are geared towards illegally winning public offices at the highest level so that they can continue to pillage the country and make a mockery of the progress that an APC government at the center has brought to Nigeria by reversing all the gains made in the past six years. It is for this reason that we are raising the alarm now so that Nigerians will know that people with less than sincere interest are on the verge of hijacking the APC and consequently impose a presidential candidate on Nigerians, use the popularity of the APC to win election and then capture power to the detriment of Nigerians. Therefore, the matter is no longer an internal issue of the APC.
You are all witnesses to how the APC has been plunged into needless crisis because of the overbearing activities of these people, notably among them are some governors from the northern states. At the core of this crisis is the dictatorial tendencies of these governors amidst a democracy. They run the party’s state chapters as extensions of their families or personal businesses. The actual members of the APC were left without say in the affairs of the party and that is hardly the way democracy is meant to work.
The members who were shortchanged by this overbearing intrusion of the state governors and their proxies had been hopeful that two critical committees (the Caretaker Extraordinary and Convention Planning Committee and the Reconciliation Committee) would have provided respite when the elective National Convention takes place. But alas, the convention was hijacked before it even held. These same governors and their minions have in their known fashion hijacked the entire exercise, which was proven to the world by the way they fixed a February 26, 2022, date for the event in flagrant disregard for the preferences expressed by stakeholders.
Sadly, things are now clearer. The governors in question never bothered about what stakeholders thought, wanted, or demanded, because for them the National Convention is a fait accompli. Rather than being a forum at which delegates would elect party officials in the hope of righting the wrongs done at the state chapters, the convention envisaged by these political vampires is one at which they will merely browbeat and coerce delegates to rubber stamp the criminal decisions that have taken, one that would undermine the 2023 General Elections because the party’s internal democracy in the APC would have been bastardized. Nigerians would be deprived of having an APC presidential candidate that passed the rigors of primary election.
Governor Mohammed Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi state and their other desperate allies that include serving Ministers have perfected plans to ensure that Senator Sani Musa is imposed as APC National Chairman alongside other lackeys that would be named to other positions at the convention. Senator Sani Musa would in turn deliver Bagudu as APC presidential flagbearer and Kayode Fayemi as his running mate. They have cooked up what they called “unity list” to package their evil plot as something positive and desirable for the party and the country when the contrary is the case.
We want APC stakeholders and Nigerians to know that these state governors are working against the interest interest of the country. As things stand we are collectively staring a full-blown state capture in the face as these band of governors paid a nocturnal visit to the Presidential Villa last Friday night with their purported “unity list” that they are now desperately promoting. At this point it is fair to point out that the Attorney general of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami is with them alongside a few unpatriotic ministers that are equally playing the overlords in states that are not controlled by the APC.
In addition to pressuring President Muhammadu Buhari to allow their criminal intent to materialize, these people have also perfected other plans to make mockery of the convention that has remained a source of controversy. The convention phase of their plan involves deploying state share of the Abacha Loot as bribe to induce all delegates to looking the other way and give the stamp of approval to whatever criminality is presented as the outcome of the gathering. A second leg of this phase is the arrest, intimidation and harassment of delegates that refuse to be bought over.
A further layer is that these people that are working against the nation’s nascent democracy and have sworn to bring down the APC should they fail to get their way at the convention by their interest not being enforced on all party men and women. This threat is already rattling some high-ranking members and leaders of the party, who are beginning to pivot toward allowing these governors and some ministers to have their way.
The APC Youth Development and Solidarity Forum therefore wishes to alert all APC members and delegates to the evil plot of the governors. We unequivocally remind these plotters that they cannnot impose their cronies and minions at the party’s helm of affairs against the wishes of other party men and women. The APC has too many enlightened minds to be so easily enslaved as these modern-day emperors think.
We are equally calling on All APC members to come to the proposed convention fully prepared to reject the plan by these few individuals to shortchange the rest of the country through their devilish and demonic plan for the party. Party members, who elected delegates in states chapters where genuine congresses were allowed, should closely monitor the conduct of their delegates at the convention and mete out sanctions to anyone that sells the party short in exchange for bribe.
We further call on Governor Mai Mala Buni as the chairman of the Caretaker Extraordinary and Convention Planning Committee to distance himself from this evil plot and not allow himself to be hypnotized by these marabouts keepers who in the 21st Century do not believe in Nigeria’s democracy. History would be unkind to anyone that fails to disavow the evil represented by these people that are out to destroy the APC and take the entire country down in pursuit of their selfish wishes.
We also appeal to President Buhari to be very careful with these governors and dubious Ministers in his cabinet. Mr. President should not allow them to destroy the APC as the party currently stands as the only hope of the common man. The destruction of the APC is automatically the destruction of his legacies.
Our position in the APC Youth Development and Solidarity Forum is straightforward. On internal party democracy we stand.