– There is rising discontent within the All Progressives Congress over the composition of its presidential campaign council
– Governors on the platform of the ruling party are said to be upset mostly over the role given to the National Leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu
– The governors allege that the council is populated mainly by people believed to be loyal to Tinubu
A report by THISDAY indicates that there is rising discontent within the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the composition of its presidential campaign council.
Governors on the platform of the ruling party are said to be upset mostly over the role given to the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, alleging that the council is populated mainly by people believed to be loyal to the former Lagos state governor.
Besides Tinubu’s prevailing influence, the structure of the council is believed to be too unwieldy to facilitate the achievement of the expected results.
For example, some members of the party are said to be questioning the need for two chairmen – Buhari and Tinubu – in a presidential campaign council, calling it undue duplication.
The same argument is being pushed against the choice of two secretaries for the council, in the persons of minister of education, Adamu Adamu, and a former commissioner for information and strategy in Lagos state, Dele Alake.
Some prominent APC members are worried that Tinubu could secure such a strategic position while the vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and the national chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, are appointed deputies.
There are issues, too, with the zonal coordination of the campaign, which is practically taken away from the governors. This is a departure from what obtained in 2015, when the APC governors not only coordinated, but also agreed among themselves who should lead each zone.
The aggrieved party members say the governors have been practically excluded from any role in the election, since looking after their states is a responsibility that comes naturally for them in any election.
Besides, chieftains of the party appointed to coordinate in the zones are suspected to have been chosen to either work at cross-purposes with the governors or serve as counter-forces for certain persons in the respective zones.
The appointment of Olusola Oke, a former governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy in Ondo state, for instance, as the coordinator for south-west is said to have been done without consultation with the state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, let alone other governors from the zone.
The implication is that he is not likely to work well with governors in the zone, more so as he is believed to have been put in that position by Tinubu, to rival Akeredolu and his allies.
A similar situation is said to be playing out in the northwest region with the appointment of Senator Aliyu Wamakko, as coordinator, to the dissatisfaction of Governors Mohammed Badaru of Jigawa and Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state.
In the southeast, the appointment of Sharon Ikeazor has also not gone down well with many leaders in the zone, including the minister of labour and productivity, Chris Ngige, who are said to see her choice as sheer disrespect for their place as leaders in the zone.
The choice of Senator Godswill Akpabio, as the south-south coordinator is being interpreted in many quarters to mean the creation of a counter-force in the region against the influence of the director-general of the campaign and minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in the Adamawa state chapter of the APC ahead of the 2019 general elections as a chieftain of the party, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has vowed never to campaign for the state governor, Jibrilla Bindow.
Ribadu, a former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was recently appointed as the director, fields operations in the Buhari campaign council.
He had pulled put of the Adamawa governorship race under the APC last year, accusing the governor of manipulating the mode of the party’s primary elections.
