CPC, CAN battles for soul of APC ahead of 2023 general elections

Political parties that formed the All Progressives Congress in 2014, including the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Tinubu and the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) are jostling for which bloc will produce the national chairman of the party comes February 2022.

Investigation revealed that the Presidency and the PGF are the two power blocs that may decide who gets what at the forthcoming convention. A party source told Saturday Tribune that since it is settled that the new National Working Committee that will emerge will conduct the party’s presidential primaries, the presidency and the governors are leaving nothing to chance in securing trusted allies to run the party’s national secretariat.

The source, who further revealed that the aspirants are being “screened” on the basis of the camps they belonged in the defunct political parties that formed the APC, noted that chieftains of the defunct CAN led by Tinubu, might be at the receiving end of a power game to surrender the party’s national secretariat to a certain chieftain of the defunct CPC, the political party that produced the APC presidential candidate in 2014, Muhammadu Buhari.

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According to findings, list of contenders includes seven former governors from the North Central, North West and North East geo-political zones, giving credence to speculation that despite the official silence on the zoning arrangement, power brokers in the ruling party may have taken a position on zoning of party positions ahead of the next general elections.

Aspirants from the North East, incidentally the geopolitical zone of the incumbent chairman of the APC CECPC, Buni, are Senators Ali Modu Sheriff, Kashim Shettima and Danjuma Goje, former governors of Borno and Gombe states, respectively. From the North Central are former governor of Nasarawa State and Senator representing Nasarawa Central, Tanko Al-Makura; former governor of Benue State and current Minister of Special Duties, George Akume.

The latest entrant into the race from North East is former governor of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda. It was learnt that the only candidate from the North West, the geo political zone of President Buhari, is former Zamfara State governor, Abdul Aziz Yari. A former governorship aspirant in Kwara State, who is the Turaki of Ilorin, Alhaji Saliu Mustapha, also declared interest in the chairmanship race at a media event in Lagos on Friday, pledging to unite the party for electoral success.

The source further argued that the defunct ACN had produced two former national chairman for the APC in behalf of its pioneer chairman, Bisi Akande and former Edo State governor and former president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Adams Oshiomhole.