2023: Why gang-up against Tinubu will fail – APC chieftain

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ahmed Sulieman Wambai, has revealed that the gang-up by some governors in the party against the National Leader of the party, Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2023 presidential election would fail.

Sulieman, the immediate past National Vice Chairman, North Central, APC, who disclosed this in an interview said some of the governors wanted to be the next president and some wanted to be the vice president.

He warned that if the governors were ganging up against Tinubu, it would fail because he is a major stakeholder in the APC.

Wambai, however, said he had no regret for working with Oshiomhole’s National Working Committee, NWC, saying that he had paid his price and had done well, saying that those people against him were the same clique against Mr. President, Tinubu and the principle of the rule of law.

“In the dissolved APC NWC, there were only about two or three persons that were anti-Oshiomhole. We would have gotten justice if we had gone to the court but we did not because of the interest of the party we have in our heart. APC is above every member of the party,” he said.

According to him, in the history of the political party, Oshiomhole remained the only chairman that governors did not contribute money to the party purse under him.

“No governor contributed to the running of the party under Oshiomhole. We did that so that the party could be independent.

“We never go cap in hand to any ministry for contract or patronages for the survival of the party. Oshiomhole was the only person that gave N20 million and N10 million contributions to all the Senators and House of Representatives candidates during the election.

“He was the only person that gave some governorship candidates of some states we desired to win like Imo, Kwara, Gombe and Zamfara N1 billion each, Benue, about N700 million. We did all these from the purse of the party. In the history of political parties, no one has done that.

“Ask me the source of the money, it was through the sale of our nomination forms. We deliberately raised the price of governorship nomination form to N22 million to reduce controversy, conflict and unnecessary competition,” he said.

Wambai explained that “We wanted to stop some unserious persons from picking the form. We even refunded the money of those that lost the primaries. Oshiomhole has never been dictated to by Mr. President, the governors or the Ministers. That is the ideal way a party should run as enshrined in the constitution of the party.”