Why APC needs total rebranding — Timi Frank

Comrade Timi Frank is the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).  In this interview with BODE OLAGOKE, he reveals some of the challenges confronting the party and why the party is polarised.

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, recently talked about a new movement within the APC, ‘the Buharists’, whose mission is to encourage President Muhammadu Buhari to seek a fresh mandate in 2019.

Does such movement exist within your party? Well, I don’t know about them and that’s the fi rst time I heard that name and I responded immediately by warning Mr.

President to be very careful of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. I can tell you he is just a sycophant.

Mr. President should by now have known the antecedent of Mallam elRufai: that he is not loyal to anybody, but himself.  It is very clear from his antecedent.

If he had fought those that made him something in life, starting from the former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, who brought him from nowhere, limelight, former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who appointed him minister, even his best friend, Nuhu Ribadu, so who then can he be loyal to? Th is same man had criticized Buhari in the past, but today suddenly sees himself as a Buharist.

What has changed from when el-Rufai commented that Buhari can never be president of Nigeria? What has changed between then and now? It is very clear to me that el-Rufai and the Buharists aren’t the ones to force the president to run.

He said Buhari will be forced to run. Th at’s very childish and insulting to the personality of the president.

Buhari is a retired General and no General is pushed around the way el-Rufai suggested Buhari would be.

If the president wants to run, he does not need nudging. The national vice-chairman, North-west, Inuwa Abdulkadir, has dismissed Atiku Abubakar’s position that he has been sidelined by the party and the Presidency.

Is Atiku making a genuine case, or just trying to make a show in the media? Well, Inuwa has his own opinion and belief. Some of us also have our own views.

Th ere are people who agree with Atiku on the views he expressed and there are those who don’t agree with him.

All do not have to agree on everything. Th at’s why it is democracy, that’s why it is politics.  You must disagree to agree.  A lot believe that Atiku Abubakar has spoken their minds.

Certain chieftains of the party shuddered when Abdulkadir, who some regard as an Atiku sympathizer, made that remark.

How do you react to this? Well, I don’t know if he is perceived to be an Atiku man.

If he had been an Atiku’s person before now I don’t think he would have made such statement.

People know Atiku’s sympathisers and Mr. President’s core men.  It is politics; people should be known either for one thing or the other.

As you know, I am an Atiku’s person and I don’t beat around the bush, my position is known but I don’t know Abdulkadir to be an Atiku’s person.

Does Atiku stand any chance of picking the APC presidential ticket? I cannot tell you now, he hasn’t declared his presidential ambition, whether he is going to run or not.

Let us wait until he declares his intention to run, then we can start deliberating whether he is going to get the ticket or not.

I believe we must as a party do what is right.

Th ere must be a fair playing ground; there must be open door for everybody to run, and anybody that has intention to run.

Some of us must be outspoken within the party to fi ght the injustice within the party and I shall continue to insist that things be done properly.

I have always opposed the national chairman of my party because we have never followed the guidelines and constitution of the party since its existence.

The APC is also divided over when and how to go about its national convention.

The likes Chief Oyegun said convention can’t be conducted in the absence of President Buhari.

But the President has been around now, still nothing on the convention yet.

What’s the way forward? Chief Oyegun lacks the capacity to run this party.

Every party Oyegun has administered has failed.

We recall his days in ANPP; how he killed the party and if we continue to keep him as national chairman, the APC will die.

He killed ANPP when he was chairman.

Th e same Oyegun was one of the persons that drove Buhari away from ANPP because of his conduct as chairman.

His style of managing party is terrible.

We know his antecedent.

Th at’s why some of us want a new chairman that can unify this party.

We have crises in practically all the states but Chief Oyegun hasn’t managed to reconcile one person.

We need to restructure the APC, it needs total rebranding and I am not the fi rst person to talk about it.

Bola Tinubu has criticized the leadership of this party; the same thing Atiku Abubakar has done, the same thing the Senate President, Bukola Saraki has done, the same thing most leaders have been doing but for some certain reasons, Oyegun is scared and he isn’t calling for any leadership meeting, because he knows the day he does that they will ask him to go.

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