President
Muhammdu Buhari has been away from Nigeria for over 70 days.
It appears
that even the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is also feeling the
impact
of President Muhammadu Buhari’s prolong medical vacation.
Governor
Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state let the cat out of the bag during the joint APC
National Working Committee (NWC) and APC Governors meeting in Abuja on
Wednesday, July 19, 2017.
Yari who
doubles as the chairman, Nigerian Governors Forum said President Buhari’s
illness has delayed the APC national convention.
“We have
been on this matter of convention but you know that as a party, the ruling
party, the president is the leader of this party,” Yari began.
“Before
getting to the convention, there is some kind of process - the national working
committee (NWC) - must agree on the time and at the same time, we have to adopt
the report submitted by NWC to the larger NEC members which the president must
be in attendance as a leader of the party and you know the situation of our
president.
“We have
been fixing time but because of his illness we are unable to hold the meeting
but we have to put a kind of process in place, so that we can at least a
mid-term convention, it is not an elective convention. These congresses that is
going to commence on July 29 is to come for this convention to fill some
vacancies taken in the executive sides, those that died or went for other
appointment.
“This has
nothing to do with PDP. This convention has no connection with the PDP
convention.
“We have
agreed collectively that we are going to meet with acting president. Acting
president should understand that that he is acting in capacity of the president
of the country as well as the vice-president. Tomorrow he is going to perform
the function of vice-president as chairman of NEC and the entire issue of
security, economy, administration lies on him. So we cannot take him as an easy
man to deal with. It's two in one.
“Therefore,
the committee is in place as we are talking today we reinstate that we going to
create room for other issues and the issue of convention," he added.
Yari
described APC’s loss in the Osun-West bye election as a wakeup call for the
party.
“We
discussed the election of Osun which we really know what happened, the media
and everyone in the party, we know what happened, it was APC, APC. PDP doesn't
have muscle to win the election and we are on top of the situation. It is a
wake-up call on dealing on things like that in the future," he added.
Highlights
of the meeting was the naming of the ten-man committee on restructuring.
Members of
the committee include, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna); Rauf Aregbesola (Osun);
Abdullahi Umar Ganduje (Kano), Simon Lalong (Plateau); Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun),
Former Edo state governor, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor.
Others are
APC national organising secretary; Osita Izunaso; APC national publicity
secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, Fatima Balla and Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi.
In his
remarks, APC spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi noted that committee would articulate
the meaning of restructuring according to the APC.
“When we
talk about a committee on restructuring, what we are talking about is a
committee that will articulate what APC means by restructuring because we have
realized that over a couple of days now or weeks.
“When people
use the word restructuring we don't know if we are talking about the same thing
and people have gone about saying APC promised restructuring.
“So we
really need to sit down to develop a shared understanding of what we mean by
restructuring in our manifesto. So this committee that is setup that will now
be chaired by the governor of Kaduna is mainly to define what APC means by
restructuring, so that every member will know what we exactly mean,” he added.
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