Governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Non- National Working Committee (NWC) members of the National Executive Committee (NEC), and State Chairmen of the party have endorsed the extension of the tenure of the Governor Mai-Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extra-ordinary National Convention Planning Committee.
The Caretaker Committee was constituted in June, following the dissolution of the then Adams Oshiomhole led-NWC on the recommendations of President Muhammadu Buhari at the APC virtual NEC meeting with the mandate to amongst others, organize a convention within six months to elect new National Officers of the party.
While the Committee has not shown any plan to organize a national convention to elect a new NWC one month to its December expiry date, the Governors and the other party’s organs have supported the extension of its tenure.
This indication was expressed at the end of a meeting of the NON-NWC NEC members and forum of State Chairmen attended by Governors Abubakar Bagudu (Kebbi); Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa) and Yahaya Bello (Kogi).
Addressing journalists at the end of the meeting, Mustapha Saliu, the Convener and APC former National Vice Chairman for North East, said the party’s leaders were in support of the extension of the tenure of the Committee to actualize its mandate.
Saliu said: “I don’t know what you are about tenure elongation, in the first place the Caretaker Committee doesn’t have tenure, they only have timeline to actualize the mandate given to them. They don’t have tenure because they’re not voted for.
“Tenure, as defined by our constitution, is when you are being voted for, for four years but these ones are appointed to actualize certain goals and these goals are not actualize yet, they are in the process so the timeline will continue until these deliverables are being actualized.
“If there is need for an extension to actualize these goals they will get an extension from the NEC and they will continue until they actualize this”.
According to him: “We are here just for the consultative meeting. We call it joint meeting, this is second of its kind where the forum of State Chairmen, forum of NON-NWC NEC members come together, deliberate on issues bordering their welfare, their job security and also the progress of the party and the country at large. So basically that is it.
“We have a very fruitful deliberation. In attendance you see we have the representative of the Extraordinarily Caretaker Committee in person of Professor Tahir Mamman, SAN who we deliberate intensively with him and he gave us all the legal efforts made to harmonize and streamline the transition processes of the Caretaker Committee.
“Also you see in attendance are three Governors, the leadership of the Progressive Governors Forum was here and they gave assurance, they gave their support to the Caretaker Committee and also the Welfare of the NON-NWC NEC members and the forum of State Chairmen and the ranks and files of the party at large and their commitment to building the party from bottom to top.
“This meeting is highly symbolic with regards to unity of the party. I as the Parton of the joint Forum convene this meeting and I convene this meeting like eight months ago here in this Hotel (Barcelona) if you people remember we have serious tussle within NWC that time and we declined giving any press statement because of the sensitive nature of the time but this time around that we have unity in the party we have the effrontery to come out and stand before camera to tell you that we are one united family you see there is no part of this country that is not represented in the NON-NWC NEC members and the forum of State Chairmen. This is a welcome development and for the first time we have such attendance”.
On the convention, he said: “There are prerequisites to this convention. There are things you need to achieve before we get to that convention. First of all like the registration, there is no party that will exist without standard registration. We have registration before, the constitution says we should update our register six months, every six months.
“We are going to now do a general update and the revalidation of our own register which has been since 2014. This is now the biggest mandate which this Caretaker Committee has after which we will now rejig this party. What we are saying rejig we will do some reaffirmation from bottom to top which will now culminate with (into) the convention. There are some prerequisites we need to do before we get to convention so we will not want to put the cart before the horse.
“Now we’re taking about registration, we will take them one at a time when we finish registration will we talk about how we are going to rejig the party, we will see the reaffirmations within the ward, local governments and states then we will now culminate into the convention and then we’ll now have a solid, one, indivisible party”.
In his remarks before the meeting went into closed door, Jones Erue, Delta State Chairman and Deputy Chairman, Forum of APC State Chairmen who spoke on behalf of the Chairman, Bukar Dalori, the APC Chairman for Borno State said the aim of the meeting was to support the existing Caretaker Committee.
He said: “This meeting falls on the very core of our existence. Let me use this opportunity to tell you that this gathering is very important because of the unity of our party. The unity of our party is important to us.
“We are here today for a common goal. People may misinterpret our goal, our goal is the unity of our party. Our goal is our party passing beyond 2023! People are watching, prophesies are everywhere, people are saying our party will breakdown before 2023 but I assure you it is me and you, you and someone sitting by your side that can fail the party.
“I want to appeal to you, we have been hearing rumours of dissolution, they will dissolve you people from ward level to national, you have the strength. If they dissolve you, then you decided to dissolve yourselves. Can NEC dissolve NEC? So, I want to let you know that nobody is prepared to dissolve you right now. We have not heard from anybody, it is rumour”.
