Governors on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) known as Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) has set up a set up a governance programme steering committee that will ensure uniformity of policy initiatives in all the states under the control of the party.
Speaking with the newsmen Friday in Abuja, Jigawa state governor, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, who is the chairman of the steering panel and his co-chairman, governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state, said the idea is to ensure that APC emerge as a distinctly social democratic party when compared to other political parties.
Governor Badaru said: “during the era of 2019 – 2023, we will want the work of the PGF Governance Programme Steering Committee to focus more on strengthening the capacity of our states to have increased commitment to implement approved initiatives.
“This may require more initiatives around issues of capacity development for functionaries of our state. This will have to be well tailored around the initiatives we subscribe to rather than the generic approach.”
The Jigawa state governor revealed that all the APC governors have agreed to key into the policy documents to be design by the steering committee.
Badaru said the essence of the committee is to shapen the identity of the APC governors.
He cited programs like agriculture and education will be looked into and adopted as a unifirm policies in all the APC controlled states.
Also speaking, Plateau state governor, represented by his deputy, Prof. Sonni Tyoden, said the idea will settle all public debates around the distinction between APC, on the one hand, and PDP and other parties, on the other.
“Given the challenge of ensuring that we achieve the vision of making our party, the APC, emerge as a distinctly social democratic party, the policy initiatives of all APC governments, particularly at the state levels, will be the defining credentials. In addition, ensuring uniformity of policy initiatives among the APC states is a fundamental requirement.
“Between 2015 and 2019, as Progressive Governors, we made have quite some efforts to adopt common initiatives. Based on assessment of initiatives from our states and critical assessments of the challenges facing our states, Forum has already agreed to some priorities, which include revenue mobilisation, funding for security, education and health.
“We need to aggressively ensure that we are able to settle all public debates around the distinction between APC, on the one hand, and PDP and other parties, on the other. It is not a theoretical issue but concretely about the initiatives coming from APC governments, especially the states.”
