From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has promised to synchronise the ruling party’s programmes of activities next year with the calendar of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi made the promise when he gave update on the party’s severally postponed mini and national convention. He said the National Working Committee (NWC) is waiting for the committee set up to harmonise the party activities, next year, ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The party’s spokesperson told newsmen there is no update on the date of the convention other than an earlier arrangement by the party to hold it in the first quarter of next year.

“On the issue of the convention of the party, as I said after the NEC meeting, recently, we are unable to hold the mini convention at the scheduled time July this for one reason or the other which I suppose everybody knows.

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“All the programmes that the party has will now dovetail into one another. We have various congresses coming up, we have the main elective convention also coming up by the first half of next year. It is important we synchronise all these and that is why we have set up a committee to look at the various activities of the party starting with the mini convention and various congresses across the states and local governments that will culminate into the national convention.

“I don’t have an update as to when the timetable for the activities will be released but the end output of that assignment is that we will now have a timetable that is synchronised with the INEC calendar showing the activities of the party starting with the various congresses and terminate with the national convention early next year.” On the 2018 budget, he said: “We are delighted that the budget was presented and as we can see, there is renewed commitment to invest in economically productive sectors in the coming year. I have read a couple of analysis on the budget and noticed that yes, there are different options but, we, as a party are happy with the budget and the promises by the National Assembly to give the budget speedy assessment.”

“We are very happy also that they have promised speedily review of the budget and the passage as soon as possible. What excites us most was that the kind of rancour and acrimony that attended the previous budget given the relationship between the legislature and the  executive is not going to happen again.

“The relationship has been mended. We are now confident as a party that the two arms of government will work smoothly and closely going forward. We are happy that we are going to start the next year in a more harmonious and coordinated manner,” he said.