As controversies continue to trail the proposed national convention of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), some aspirants have expressed confidence in the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
The group, led by Mr. Maxwell Yakubu Gowon, in an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, faulted claim by the former Director General (DG) of Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman, that the Buni-led committee was bent on sabotaging conduct of the convention billed for February 26.
The group, under the aegis of Forum of APC Aspirants for 2022 National Convention, claimed Lukman’s position indicated he is working in cahoots with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to undermine the APC.
The group said: “Lukman is neither an aspirant nor a candidate of our party for the convention and for any election in the future. We are perplexed that Lukman is today pontificating and creating the impression that he means well for the party. If he truly means well, even as a lowly administrator of PGF, he would have leveraged that position to appeal to his former employers, the APC state governors, to respect party democracy and allow the will of most party members to prevail at the state chapters of the party.
“Whatever crisis the party faces nationally, today, were birthed at the state levels, owing to the overbearing disposition of some state governors. It is, therefore, perplexing that Lukman, who timidly watched the state governors damage the party, is now crying murder and attempting to re-write history, as we know it, and exonerate the state governors.”
“We find it ridiculous that the CECPC, which under the leadership of Buni, worked tirelessly to resolve some of the crisis in the party, was maligned by Lukman.”
The group also faulted the notion held in certain quarters that Buni is bent on manipulating his emergence as substantive national chairman of the party during the convention.
It added: “We find this to be a case of fertile imagination taken to the point of hallucination. Although, Buni, being a member of the party, has every right to aspire to any office he wishes to occupy, but the truth is out in the open.”
