From Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Abuja
The February convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been suspended till June.
Daily Sun gathered in Abuja, yesterday, that court cases arising from its ward, local government and state congresses as well as factions in some state chapters influenced the leadership of the party and its Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) to postpone the convention.
A top party source, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak on behalf of the CECPC, disclosed that the need to settle internal wrangling, create more time for consultations and settlement of litigations were considered in shifting the convention.
“The committee is working and some stakeholders even met the president last weekend. So, there are consultations and one major thing to consider is that these consultations are not made public so as not to attract so much attention and sabotage of the process. There are behind-the-scenes efforts to make sure the convention is held as soon as possible, though it is not longer feasible for next month.”
Asked if the convention could hold before the first half of the year, the source said: “Oh, sure. There’s great hope, of course, before June. There’s great hope for that. The APC wants to go into the convention united. The major issue is that the party doesn’t want to go to the convention with litany of problems, complaints, challenges and court cases. They want to resolve it as relatively quickly as possible because the convention is the stepping stone to the general election. If you don’t get it right at the convention, you’re in trouble. No matter how long it takes to hold the convention, we should get it right…
“…And the truth is that the CECPC believes if the party has not solved the problems arising from ward, local government and state congresses, with the controversies arising therefrom, so, if these congresses have generated, say, over 100 court cases and challenges for the party, going ahead with the convention would likely double those numbers of challenges and court cases. At the end of the day, there would be litany of court cases all over the place and that would not be good for the party, particularly in 2023.
“So, instead of approaching the convention with litany of cases, some of which are already in the courts, the leadership has decided to resolve the issues on ground, first. At the end of the day, if the issues are not resolved, the outcome of the convention could be contested in court because it won’t be one or two people approaching the court on the convention.
“You can imagine, before you resolve the ward congresses that are being challenged now, then, you have to resolve that of the local governments and then, the state congresses and the fourth one is the national convention.
“These are problems, if unresolved, would affect the party performance in 2023 general election. The CECPC is trying to be cautious, the committee is trying to be careful and working towards resolving these problems relatively. Even if they cannot resolve all, let’s have major challenges resolved, particularly those that may stand as serious impediment against the party.”
Another source said it was imperative to shift the convention and allow the reconciliation committee do its work.
“If we can settle the big fishes, the party can managed, to an extent, any fallout from the national convention. So, this is what the party is trying to do behind the scene.
“The reconciliation committee has, to a large extent, resolved the differences in the party in Gombe, they were also in Osun, Ogun and Kwara. They are now working on major challenges then, lighter ones can be resolved quickly; before the convention.
“The CECPC is also working on states and areas where there are serious challenges for the party so as not to approach the convention with several court cases which may affect the performance of the party in 2023.”
A source in the CECPC dismissed insinuations that the convention was delayed because of Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni’s alleged interest in contesting one of the top two positions in 2023.
