Zoning tussle: APC North Central Elders storms party hqts in solidarity with Ganduje

The group under the auspices of Concerned North Central All Progressives Congress (APC) Stakeholders/Elders Forum on Wednesday, stormed the National headquarters of the ruling party, staging a solidarity rally in support of the leadership of the national chairman, Dr. Umar Ganduje.

The rally comes following the clamour for the return of the national chairmanship to the North Central.

Speaking, the leader of the group and former Senate President of the second republic, Senator Ameh Ebute expressed satisfaction in the leadership style of Dr. Ganduje, noting that he has achieved so much in his short stay in office.

“We have by our own free will, and as a collective of true progressives, decided to pay Your Excellency, this solidarity visit because we believe this is the best time to physically express our appreciation of the great things you have been doing for our great party since you were sworn into the office of the National Chairman.

“Therefore, this is a solidarity visit to our respected National Chairman by Party members of North Central Nigeria to ask and demand that you continue to do more for our Party.

“Mr Chairman, we are not unaware of growing calls by some elements of the Party from the North Central Zone for reversal of the occupant of the office of the National Chairman based on the zoning arrangements that made Senator Abdullahi Adamu, your predecessor, who is from Nasarawa State in the North Central Zone, the National Chairman of our Party before he resigned in 2023.

“While we acknowledge the efforts of these advocates of returning the Chairman’s office to North Central Zone, we however, believe that the more compelling reason for anybody to advance the manner of person that will occupy the office of the National Chairman of our Party should be about consideration for track record of performance as shown in winning political contests against the opposition. Equally important is how the rank and file members of the Party are directly benefiting from the activities of the Party across the country.

“When we put all these together, we came to the conclusion that you, Your Excellency, ticks all the boxes for a performing excellent Chairman. Indeed, you’re not just a performing National Chairman but a National Chairman that had done the most in the shortest possible time to positively impact individual members of our great party while our party have also recorded impressive electoral strides bereft of rancour under your leadership.

“By these considerations, we hereby declare our unalloyed support for you, Your Excellency, to continue to manage the affairs of our great Party, the APC and to remain in the office of the National Chairman, for the good and development of members of the Party especially for the purpose of ensuring stability in the administration of our great Party”, he added.

Also, Senator Jack Tilley-Gyado stated that the North Central have been compensated with the Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation in person of Senator George Akume and are contented with it.

He said, “You (Ganduje) are doing a great job. You run everywhere there is crisis. You don’t have religion. As a means of governing this party, Christians or Muslims alike have equal opportunities under your leadership. Everybody has a sense of belonging under your leadership. Everybody is carried along under your leadership.

“A man like that is needed to support President Tinubu in his wondrous effort to turn things around, give us dividends of democracy in a very difficult situation that we find ourselves in this country today. You are a necessary factor in the success of administration of Tinubu. We, from the North Central, come here to give you support in broad daylight. Having said that, it is our thinking that North Central has already been taken care of in the affairs of this government. We have a very very important position, the chief scribe of this government, namely the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, His excellency, Distinguished Senator George Akume [CON]. We are very happy with that appointment”.

In his response, the APC National Chairman said he is committed to reconciling members of the ruling party while working towards winning elections in all states of the Federation.

He said, “It is important to make our party a very strong institution. We promised our party and Nigerians that business is not going to be as usual in APC. We promised to undertake some innovations which we have started.

“Reconciliation is a very important factor in democracy. Reconciliation is very important for the stability of our political party. Reconciliation is a vital issue for success. Also we promised that there will be electronic registration of the membership of our party which we have already started. It is so vital because democracy is changing, democracy is getting advanced in Nigeria.

“To win an election, we need to consider so many variables, we need to have accurate data with the necessary features that we can forecast, plan and calculate. Election nowadays is not a trial and error, it is scientific, unless you are scientific, you are bound to fail in an election period”.

Dr. Ganduje also urged party faithfuls to work together and support President Bola Tinubu’s administration in maintaining peace and security in the country.