An aspirant for the office of the National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Dr. Samaila Dahuwa, has assured that the leadership of the party will do everything possible to identify an acceptable presidential candidate come 2023 elections.
Dr. Dahuwa, also observed that the conditions that necessitated the zoning of the national secretary position to Yobe state previously no longer exist.
He said the party cannot risk losing Bauchi state because it gave the highest vote to the President despite losing the governorship election to the Peoples Democratic Party.
Speaking with newsmen Sunday in Abuja, the APC National Secretary leading aspirant urged the party leadership to quickly resolve all it internal issues by filling of vacant positions of the party so that it will better prepare and be in the best fighting force ahead of 2023.
“Positions were zoned to the North East and they were divided with in the North East through consensus. Now the condition that led to all those decisions are no longer there and since the conditions has seized to exist we believe those zoning agreement also seize to exist.
“As I said earlier party offices are zoned in order to give the party political advantage. I will give you an example, when the National Youth Leader was zoned to Bauchi and Gombe we the people of Bauchi we decided without anybody asking to tell the people of Gombe to take the position of the National Youth leader and at that time Bauchi state had APC government and Gombe state had PDP government, we believe giving the position to Gombe will facilitate and give emphasis to the party in the state to work hard and take the government which they did and was actually positive.
“What we are saying in Bauchi now is as it stands Yobe state has government and Senate government, Borno state has APC government apart from other appointments they have the Chief Whip of the House of Representatives. Gombe state has APC government, they have National Youth Leader of the APC, Adamawa state doesn’t have APC government but they have National Vice Chairman of APC and they also have the secretary to the government who is also a politician. It is very important to note that in position is different from a non politician in position. Taraba state don’t have APC in government but Taraba has never been an APC state. I can tell you if you give them the National Chairman they won’t vote for APC so it is going to be a waste of position. Bauchi state has the highest votes in the whole of North East for President Buhari. Bauchi has been in the forefront of whatever agitation of the APC since the coming back of this administration.
“What we are saying is as it stands today Bauchi state has nothing in the position of the National working committee of the party, no position in the National Assembly and no government and still we are the highest in votes unless APC wants to lose Bauchi state and I am sure APC doesn’t want to lose Bauchi state. Let me conclude by saying you can lose Kano state of Lagos state and still win the presidency of the country. Since Tafa Balewa up till today there has never been a president that won presidency without winning Bauchi state,” he said.
Speaking on the state of the party’s preparedness ahead of 2023, he said: “Well I don’t think it is time to start talking of where the presidency should go to. What I can only say to you now with all honesty is that APC will fill in the best candidate that will win election for the party and will be accept to all Nigerians. That I can tell you without any doubt but I think it isn’t time for us to talk about where the presidency is going to be zoned to but I think we should position ourselves so that we can effectively bring in a candidate that will be acceptable to all Nigerians.”
