President Muhammadu Buhari has called for order in the All Progressives Congress (APC) following the dramatic events that have played out in the last few days.
Recently, Niger State Governor Sani Bello headed to APC secretariat and attempted to assume the position of caretaker chairman in the place of Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni who is out of the country. However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) refused to acknowledge Bello’s leadership.
According to Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Bello had the backing of Buhari and 19 of 23 APC governors. He accused Buni of sabotaging the party’s efforts to hold its national convention on March 26.
However, reacting to the state of affairs in the party, Buhari stressed that the party’s national convention would hold on March 26.
The president, in a statement on Saturday by his spokesman Garba Shehu, urged members of the party to desist from “name-calling and backstabbing”.
Blaming the media for the focus on the party’s crisis, Buahri said, “It is important to ask what benefits the poor are getting during the period of intense negative coverage.
“When precisely the party’s convention is held and who is the party’s chairman is hardly a matter for the average voter: vastly more important is who convention delegates will elect as the party’s flagbearer in the coming weeks to take forward the party’s platform to the people in the general election in February next year.
“It is therefore important for the media to put such matters into perspective. No one is debating policy differences here. That is for the general election. None of the declared aspirants and any of those that may step forward will change because of who may be in the party in the chairman’s seat. It is essentially the same party.
“Of course, the media are welcome to comment on the content of the character of the potential APC candidates; discuss their suitability for leadership; scrutinize their offer to the membership. But to focus on the routine internal divisions and magnify them into what they have become today is a waste of everyone’s time, amounting to no more than a discussion over seating arrangements.”
