The Senate Caucus of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday, urged members of the party to unite and have a sense of purpose for the party to emerge victorious in the 2023 general elections.
Leader of the Senate, Yahaya Abdullahi, made the call while speaking with journalists in Abuja, after a closed-door session of the caucus which lasted for about two hours.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that John Akpanudoedehe, the National Secretary, APC Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) on Monday, described “as fake and imaginary, the purported leadership change in the party.”
Mr Abdullahi said: “APC senators met for about two hours. We are too worried about what is happening in our party and we expressed our concerns over the challenges facing the party.
“We resolved to meet again to articulate the major issues and then meet with the various stakeholders and aspirants of the party to advise and call for unity and sense of purpose.
“We want to draw the attention of everyone involved to come together and unite so that we can have very successful convention in the party.
“This is not the time for exchanging regrets about what we can do. What is happening is about the future of our party and government and also the capacity of our party to win elections in 2023.
“We have sat down as important stakeholders, as a caucus in this great party to dissect all the issues that have been affecting our party since the formation of the caretaker extraordinary convention planning committee.
“We are quite aware of the challenges that they have faced and we are also aware of the successes that the committee has recorded particularly when it comes to registration of members.
“They came to harmonise some of the successes of the party, carrying out congresses at the ward, local government and at the state levels.
“We commend the performance of that committee.
“We ask you to do more by as much as possible, trying to reconcile those chapters where there are still challenges trailing the ward, local government and state congresses because a loss in any state is a loss for the party.
“We cannot afford to come to the convention as a divided entity. Anywhere there are challenges that can cause the party its victory is a loss for everybody.”
Mr Abdullahi, while reacting to the tussle between the Buni-led caretaker committee and Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State, said the same convention planning committee was in place.
“What we realised is that the chairman of the convention planning committee has been sick and he went for medication, checkup.
“The Niger governor, from the grapevine and from the knowledge that is available to us is actually the deputy chairman; and in the absence of the chairman, he is acting till the chairman comes back.
“The speculation in the papers is not exactly true. What we are concerned about is the seeming disarray in the party,” the Senate Leader said.
Mr Bello had on Monday said he had taken over the leadership of the governing party in acting capacity.
(NAN)
