APC to decide on zoning June 2021

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will decide on which part of the country will produce its presidential candidate for 2023 in June next year, sources in the party told Daily Trust on Tuesday.

One of the sources said if the North gets the slot of the national chairman of the party during the national convention of the party, the South will produce the presidential candidate and vice versa.

An emergency virtual National Executive Committee (NEC) yesterday extended the lifespan of the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led 13-member APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) by six months. The timeline given the caretaker committee will expire on December 25, but the NEC extended it for another six months period that would terminate on June 30, 2021.

Among other issues, the reason given by the party was for the committee to complete membership revalidation and registration of new members, but competent sources said the window will most importantly afford the party opportunity to resolve contentious issues zoning inclusive.

“This is partly why President Muhammadu Buhari in his remarks at the NEC meeting harped on healing wounds, mending fences and respecting the free-merger agreement reached by those behind the formation of the APC,” another source said.

He said the issue of which part of the country should produce the APC’s flag bearer was threatening the existence of the party as the second tenure of Buhari eats deep into the second year.

“While there are sources that believe APC leaders from the North can use the numerical strength of the region to hold on to power, those in the South feel it would amount to a betrayal of trust if the North did not reciprocate what was done to them in 2015.

“The extension of time for the Buni-led committee is honestly beyond membership registration…The major issue is the sharing formula without causing an unnecessary distraction.

“And even if the North agrees to hands-off, we have to agree on which part of the South should have the presidential candidate.

“There are those who believe it should go to the South West.

“There are those who believe it should go to the South East, and some people are saying the South-South should be given a chance, but it all depends on the disposition of the Villa,” the source said.

 

‘We must respect pre-2015 agreements’

In his remarks during the NEC meeting, President Buhari said the Buni-led caretaker committee had succeeded in bringing the new atmosphere of hope to the party and urged party members to collectively work towards the sustenance of peace.

“Healthy debates are now taking place and the potential for organs of the party to affirm the majority positions as the decision of the party is now possible,” Buhari said.

“What is required now is for all of us as leaders of the party to maintain discipline and ensure that this new momentum is protected, sustained and the decisions of party organs are respected by every member.

“May I use this opportunity to remind all of us of the need to recreate our negotiation the secret of 2012, 2013 under our legacy parties, what guided our success to achieve the merger that produced the APC was the respect we were able to have for each other.

“In those times, decisions reached both formal and informal consultations were respected.

“We trusted initiatives taken and believed that they were required to produce the needed political platform that could guarantee electoral victory.

“Every one of us as leaders ensured that those decisions were respected,” the president said.

While briefing State House reporters after the NEC meeting, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State in the company of Governors Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo), Hope Uzodinma (Imo), and Secretary of the CECPC, Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe, said the national convention where new party leaders would emerge would hold after the revalidation of registration and membership of party members that would soon start.

“Since we undertook our last membership registration in 2015, about 25 million have reached the age of 18 and may want to join the party.

“So, we want to capture those (people) and then after we complete the registration, we will have congresses at various levels, leading up to the national convention before the 30th of June 2021 by the grace of God.”

 

Beyond the surface

Our correspondents could not establish whether the president had “categorically” mentioned the issue of zoning as part of the agreement, but a source at the meeting said it was part of it.

Recalled that the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, had recently said there was a zoning arrangement, urging that it should be respected on the expiration of President Buhari’s tenure in 2023.

A close ally of the president, who was part of the formation of the APC, told Daily Trust that there was an agreement on zoning.

The APC was formed in 2013 following the merger of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP.

The president’s ally, who does not want to be named, said the agreement was reached before the merger process was sealed.

“The agreement was informally reached between the then ACN and CPC with Buhari and Asiwaju in attendance.

“There were four persons from each side. It was a serving minister from the North that first raised the issue.

“Then it was agreed that Buhari should fly the ticket and afterward, the power will shift to the South, specifically South-west,” he said.

DAILY TRUST