By David Lawani
The Governor of Nasarawa State and chairman of All Progressives Congress, APC media committee, Abdullahi Sule has told journalists in Abuja that President Muhammadu Buhari has instructed that in the interest of fairness and justice, all aspirants who bought the form for the national chairmanship position of the party should be refunded their money.
Sule in the company of other media committee members ahead of the national convention in a briefing at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja said the party is considering the number one option of consensus to elect national executives members of the party.
According to him: ‘As far as the payment, refund of their funds. I also mentioned you know, earlier on it, so many governors have mentioned, the party also has mentioned that is the President has said in the case of fairness, all those that have agreed on this consensus out of respect for the leadership of the party, should have the money refunded to them? And I think that is it. One thing I can tell you, the leadership of this party, the stakeholders of this party, the governors are united.
“If you look at the news items you will see so many things written you will see these and that. One thing I will tell you is this: one of the most respected governors who also happens to be the chairman of the Nigerian governor’s forum and a very strong member of the APC is Governor, Fayemi. And governor Fayemi was sitting in all the meetings where all these have been agreed upon. So when you said that I was surprised, but then I just received a report that there is a refusal, you know, by governor Fayemi, he said he never said that. And that is what I have just seen.
“On the arrangement for the consensus. I think anybody who has been following up with the activities of Mr. President and the party will understand that so many things have been going on towards consensus. Mr. President has met with the governors met with the aspirants for the chairmanship, met with the National Assembly is meeting also with all the major stakeholders of this party and the rest of that. If you look at that, that is an arrangement towards a consensus.
“When we go to our meetings, we are going to these meetings united, we don’t hear some of the things that you hear. Sometimes honestly, we came out of one meeting, APC governors’ meeting, and I had the governor of Kogi sitting next to me, and we came out and somebody says we had a big fight, we nearly exchanged blows. And there was zero discussion on that. Nothing even came close to that. So sometimes you will hear a lot of things that may not necessarily be exactly the case. Thank you very much”, he said.
He maintained that even before declaring for the convention, the choice before the party has always been consensus, and nothing more said the essence is to make the party more united and focus on the goals that lie ahead.
He said: ” Before you go into the convention, our first choice is always consensus. And we’re still on that first choice. However, democracy demands, even our (APC) Constitution demands, and the constitution of Nigeria demands that if that doesn’t work, we’ll go ahead and look at the other options. But right now, that remains our option. Number one.”.
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On the issue of political appointees to President, and who are also delegates, he stated: ” List are statutory delegates. So if you have a former president as a political appointee, if you have a former senator as a political appointee, these are already automatic delegates, you know, so let’s not confuse the two just because being an appointee doesn’t necessarily take you out of being a delegate, because our delegates are classified. Former president of our party, former elected this, elected that, party officials and the rest of that. I don’t think anybody who holds any political party office is right now a political appointee of the President, or the governors and the rest of that.
“So most of the list that we submitted, you know, if you are talking of the ones who have submitted now, we don’t have commissioners, we don’t have advisors, we don’t have all those unless if somebody particularly was a former this or former that, in that case, you know, just being an appointee doesn’t completely exclude such a person, you know, from being a delegate.
“The issue of unity list, you know, is an item that you have to well, two questions were asked on that, you know, one, when will it be ready, from onward we have had on the various regions, you know, that unity list will be ready today, you know, I will be submitted and somebody was asking whether it is for real we are going to have unity lease or not, of course, yes, if you are talking of consensus, you must have unity list, because that’s the whole essence of consensus.
“You know, if you’re having consensus, you’re going to have people who have agreed, aspirants who have agreed, stakeholders who have agreed, and also the constituency that has agreed, and in that case, that name automatically will be adopted. And that’s just the meaning of the unity list. That’s how unity lists are going to be put together”, he stressed.
