APC Moves to Build Grand Coalition of Old, Current Govs Asiwaju Bola Tinubu

Political Adviser to the President Ahmed
Gulak and Deputy National Publicity
Secretary of PDP Abdullahi Jalo, who raised
the concerns, urged the Independent
National Electoral Commission to sanction
APC for breaking the rule on the timing of
election campaigns.
This was, however, as hints emerged from
the National Assembly that the 57 members
of the House of Representatives, who had
identified with the Baraje-led New PDP,
might have concluded plans to defect to APC
any moment. THISDAY learnt that as a
prelude to the imminent defection, the
Progressive Governors’ Forum, which
consists of governors of the 10 APC states,
would be organising a special dinner this
week to interact with the intending converts
to the opposition coalition.
To make room for the G7 governors and
other New PDP supporters, APC has
expressed a willingness to review its
constitution, which currently provides for a
35-member interim management committee,
with each of the three major parties in the
coalition – Action Congress of Nigeria,
Congress for Progress Change, and All
Nigeria Peoples Party – as well as the
factions from All Progressives Grand Alliance
and Democratic Peoples Party contributing a
specified number of officers.
A top APC member told THISDAY yesterday
in Abuja that the party's delegation would
continue its consultations with a visit to
Amaechi on Monday, after which the team
would visit Minna, the Niger State capital,
for a similar discussion with Governor
Babangida Aliyu. He said the APC leaders
planned to round off their tour with another
trip to Sokoto to concretise issues with the
state governor, Aliyu Wamako.
Besides Amaechi, Aliyu, and Wamakko, the
other four governors in the G7 are Kwara
State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, Adamawa
State Governor Murtala Nyako, Jigawa State
Governor Sule Lamido, and Kano State
Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The APC team had in the last one week
visited Kwankwaso, Lamido, Wamakko, and
Nyako.
“We have carried the battle straight to the
PDP National Chairman's home state in
Adamawa and we are following it up with a
visit to Governor Rotimi Amaechi in Port
Harcourt on Monday,” the APC source said
on condition of anonymity because he was
not authorised to speak on the issue.
He dismissed as insincere an alleged last
minute effort by the PDP and President
Goodluck Jonathan’s men to reach out to
Amaechi.
According to him, “If Amaechi had been the
governor of Bayelsa, the president's home
state, we will still have gone there to woo
him. Being from the president's region is
absolutely irrelevant. What is important is
that Amaechi has consistently cried out that
he was being suffocated by the Presidency.
“If anybody is even more aggrieved, I think it
is Governor Amaechi and we are very
hopeful that he will listen to our sympathetic
request for him to come over and join our
party. Governor Amaechi is a very intelligent
and resourceful man. I think he can take a
decision and know which option is in his
own best interest.”