Ahead of the February 2022 National Convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a political ally of President Muhammadu Buhari and former Deputy National Chairman of the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), Saliu Mustapha has announced his intention to vie for the party’s National Chairmanship position.
Mustapha, who announced his ambition at an interactive session with journalists in Abuja on Tuesday vowed to do things differently, such that APC will not be a cabal to itself, if elected as Chairman of the party.
He said the party under his watch will become an open book so as not to give room for dissenting minds or voices, stressing that, a political party administrator should be someone who gives people a listening ear and not like an Executive Governor that is told what he wants to hear.
“I’m bringing a lot on board. One, I’m bringing goodwill, experience, youthfulness not with exuberance but with experience. First and foremost, I want to see a party that promotes equity, fairness and justice. It is when you have a party of that sort that you are able to allow popular candidates emerge.
“When popular candidates emerged based on their merit, then you don’t suffer the fear of election rigging. It is when you bring unpopular candidates on board, then you start thinking of how to go and rig the general election. And when you rig the general election with bad products, the end result is bad governance or bad representation.
“So, I want to bring on board a party that will promote internal discipline, that will be held to account for their manifesto and their promises where you will have fairness, equity and justice so that we all can sit back at home and enjoy the dividends of democracy. And I want to also be able to bridge the gap,” Mustapha said.
The Turaki of Ilorin while stressing the good rapport between him and his home State of Kwara Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, said APC is in control of the State today because he did not go to Court following irregularities in the 2018 primary election.
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Mustapha said: “Due to some irregularities in the party, then I was disqualified. I did not go to Court because I felt we were one and the same. I was looking at the bigger goal. If I had gone to Court, I think my own case was more serious than that of Zamfara or Rivers and we would have had another Zamfara or Rivers in Kwara.”
He also expressed readiness to resolve the internal crisis in the Kwara State Chapter of the APC spearheaded by the Lai Mohammed/Gbemisola Saraki group against the Governor AbdulRazaq camp if elected as National Chairman.
The APC Chairmanship aspirant appealed to those calling for the dissolution of the Mai-Mala Bun-led Caretaker Committee of the party to sheathe their swords and work for a seamless convention that would bring on board substantive leadership.
On the issue of direct and indirect party primaries, he said: “Some of these things I believe should be the strategy of a party on how to win its elections. So I might not want to tell you where I stand on that publicly here, because for me as a party, we must always look at what will favour us, how do we come out victorious.”
