A national chairmanship aspirant of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Mohammed Saidu Etsu, has rejected the reported endorsement of Senator Abdullahi Adamu as a consensus candidate.
The Niger state born chairmanship aspirant, however, called on other aspirants and major stakeholders to speak out over the development.
Claiming body language of the President, a section of the media (Not Blueprint) had reported a purported endorsement of Senator Adamu as consensus candidate of the President.
But reacting to the development Thursday in Abuja through a statement, Saidu Etsu: “As a solid contender vying for the APC national chairman from the north-central part of the country, I will be utterly surprised to see this claim come to light.
“Nobody has communicated me to this effect and if such claims are to hold weight, I strongly believe that the party knows the best channel to reach out to us, as fellow aspirants who are equally qualified for this seat.
“Politics is about people, whether directly or indirectly, nominations and the reaching of consensus for this sensitive position should be a game of numbers. We have over 41 million registered APC members across the country, with a number of them being involved in the internal party decision-making process. Most of which, I know that are not aware of this claim.
“In the situation of partisan politics, elections do begin from the political party’s politics. This implies that our party, the ruling All Progressives Congress must take the responsibility of acting as a good ambassador for a fair-hearing internal party politics as well as promoter/custodian of true democracy. This is what I intend to uphold with my ‘Reset Agenda’ when I emerge as the party chairman.
“Reading from the front page of today’s Newspapers was the claim that the president, at the brief meeting, told some northern governors that the next All Progressives Congress party chairman should come from the North Central and that the person should be former governor of Nasarawa state, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
“The same statement says that with Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential endorsement, all other aspirants vying for the chairmanship seat were expected to withdraw from the race.”
He also called on stakeholders to look into the current situation and swiftly react to it, Etsu said: “My Co-contestants and I have spent a great deal of resources campaigning and rallying around the 36 of Nigeria for at least a year now. I will categorically state that I am unhesitatingly ready to purchase the party chairmanship form right away, should the sales of forms be rolled out at this point.
“I am therefore calling on the stakeholders to look into the current situation and swiftly react to it because if this is true, we cannot agree to this decision as candidates.
“While we are holding back to hear from the party, this decision remains unacceptable and I beseech the stakeholders to disregard and discontinue this claim.”