Raises c’ttee on restructuring
By Bode Olagoke Abuja
It has become clearer that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would not hold its constitutionally mandated mid-term National Convention until President Muhammadu Buhari returned from his medical trip. However, the party has set up a committee to review its position on the much-talked about restructuring. Addressing newsmen yesterday at the party’s national secretariat after a closed door meeting between the APC governors and the National Working Committee (NWC) in Abuja, Zamfara state Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, who spoke on behalf his colleagues, said President Buhari “must be in attendance as a leader of the party.” He said: “We have been on this matter of convention, but you know that as a party, the ruling party, the president is the leader of this party. One, before getting to the convention, there is some kind of process.
Th e National Working Committee (NWC), must agree on the time, and at the same time, we have to adopt the report submitted by the National Working Committee to the larger NEC members. “We have been fi xing time, but because of his illness we are unable to hold the meeting. But we have to put a kind of process in place, so that we can have at least, a mid-term convention, it is not an elective convention. Th ese congresses that are going to commence on July 29, are will at the convention, fi ll some vacancies taken in the executive sides, those that died or went for other appointments. “Th is has nothing to do with PDP. PDP is a party in its own right and PDP was a ruling party. Th is convention has no connection with the PDP convention.” Continuing, he said: “We have agreed collectively that we are going to meet with the acting president. Acting president should understand that that he is acting in capacity of the president of the country as well as the vice-president.
“Tomorrow, he is going to perform the function of vicepresident as chairman of NEC and the entire issue of security, economy, administration lies on him, so we cannot take him as an easy man to deal with. It is two in one. Th erefore, the committee is in place as we are talking today. We reiterate that we are going to create room for other issues and the issue of convention.” On restructuring, the APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, said the party “will articulate what APC means by restructuring.” He said: “When we talk about a committee on restructuring, what we are talking about is a committee that will articulate what APC means by restructuring because we have realised that over a couple of days now or weeks, when people use the word restructuring, we don’t know if we are talking about the same thing, and people have gone about saying APC promised restructuring. “So, we really need to sit down to develop a shared understanding of what we mean by restructuring in our manifesto. So, this committee that is set up will now be chaired by the governor of Kaduna, and will mainly defi ne what APC means by restructuring, so that every member will know what we exactly mean”, Abdullahi further clarifi ed.
