Tinubu, Buhari, Shettima, Osinbajo, may decide Ganduje’s fate

• As APC chiefs clash over his leadership

The debate on the propriety of the continued stay in office by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, will likely be the main issue of discussion during the caucus and National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party slated for September 11 and 12.

The planned parley was disclosed yesterday by APC’s National Secretary, Dr Surajudeen Ajibola, as two chieftains of the party, Chief Oliver Okpala and Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, traded words on whether Ganduje should stay on or not as chairman.

Okpala, who is Ganduje’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Enlightenment, had described Zazzaga’s scathing attacks on Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa, who passed a vote of confidence on Ganduje, as reckless.

Sule, who chairs the North-Central APC Governors Forum, had, last week Thursday, rallied support for the Ganduje-led NWC given the need for concerted efforts towards ensuring the victory of the party in the Edo and Ondo governorship polls.

However, Zazzaga, while speaking on behalf of North Central Forum of the party faulted Sule on the basis that the seat of the national chairman of the party rightly belonged to the North Central geo-political zone of the country based on the power-sharing arrangement by the leadership of the APC.

Zazzaga said Sule betrayed his state and the entire North Central geo-political zone to allegedly score political goals. But in his reaction, Okpala, in a statement, insisted that Sule’s position on Ganduje must be reckoned with by well-meaning members of the party from the north-central geopolitical zone.

Billed the attend the parley to be held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa are President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; his Vice, Sen Kashim Shettima; former President, Muhammadu Buhari; and his Deputy, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, among other party big wigs. Ajibola, in a notification yesterday, disclosed that the NEC meeting would be held on September 12 at the Nicon Hilton Hotel Abuja.