Our convention not postponed to June – APC

Lai’s camp tackles reconciliation c’ttee The national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has denied shifting the proposed February national convention of the party to June 2022 as reported in some quarters. The Secretary of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Senator John James Akpanudoedehe, in a statement, said it was already embarking on […]

• Lai’s camp tackles reconciliation c’ttee

The national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has denied shifting the proposed February national convention of the party to June 2022 as reported in some quarters.

The Secretary of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Senator John James Akpanudoedehe, in a statement, said it was already embarking on nationwide consultations with party stakeholders to prepare the grounds for a rancour-free convention.

The statement also hinted at addressing contestations within the party, litigations and fallouts of the recently conducted congresses before the convention.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in November 2021, met with the top echelon of the party at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, where it was agreed that the convention should hold in February 2022. But no specific date was fixed.

The Governor Mai Mala Buni-led caretaker committee said, “Dates for party activities such as meetings, primaries, congresses, national conventions are communicated through well-known official channels and not through ‘sources.’

“As a focus-driven, process-oriented political party, the APC caretaker committee under the leadership of Governor Mai Mala Buni will not be distracted by self-serving antics of these sponsors of fake news.

“To this end, the sub-committee on budgeting and other sub-structures will be set up in due course.”

Lai’s camp accuses reconciliation c’ttee of bias

Meanwhile, a faction of the party in Kwara State loyal to the minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has accused the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led APC national reconciliation committee of bias.

This is coming a day after the committee left Kwara State, on Tuesday.

In a statement by the publicity secretary of the party, Barr Ibrahim Sharafdeen, on Wednesday, the faction said the body language and conduct of the former Nasarawa governor were at variance with the committee’s stated objective.

The group’s disagreement was in reaction to statements credited to the reconciliation committee chairman upon their arrival in Ilorin on Monday and a courtesy visit to Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.

Adamu, according to a statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Rafiu Ajakaiye, was quoted to have said his committee was in Kwara to “reconcile ‘genuinely aggrieved’ party members and will not accept any action or utterances that can deepen division or rubbish the APC-led administration in the state”.

But the factional APC, in the statement, said Adamu’s utterances were a “prejudicial remark from a man who is expected to be neutral in view of the volatile nature of his assignment.”