Stakeholders in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have met again to rally support for the tenure extension of the current National Caretaker Committee u derby the leadership of governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe state.
The stakeholders include some governors, the leadership of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), forum of the APC state chairmen and forum of non-NWC NEC members of the party.
The meeting which held Thursday evening in Abuja, behind a closed door had governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi, Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa and Yahaya Bello of Kogi states.
Speaking with the newsmen after the meeting, convener of the meeting and immediate passed National Vice Chairman of the party, Comrade Salihu Mustapha, said they had a fruitful deliberation.
“This meeting is highly symbolic with regards to unity of the party. I as the Parton of the joint Forum convened this meeting like eight months ago also when we had serious tussle within NWC that time and we declined giving any press statement because of the sensitive nature of the time but this time around that we have unity in the party, we have the effrontery to come out and stand before camera to tell you that we are one united family you see there is no part of this country that is not represented in the NON-NWC NEC members and the forum of State Chairmen. This is a welcome development and for the first time we have such attendance.”
When asked whether the meeting deliberated on the issue of tenure extension for the National Caretaker Committee, Mustapha said: “In the first place the Caretaker Committee doesn’t have tenure, they only have timeline to actualize the mandate given to them. They don’t have tenure because they’re not voted for.
“Tenure as defined by our constitution is when you are being voted for, for four years but these ones are appointed to actualize certain goals and these goals are not actualized yet, they are in the process so the timeline will continue until these deliverables are being actualized. If there is need for extension to actualize these goals they will get extension from the National Executive Council (NEC) and they will continue until they actualize this.”
On the contentious 2023 general elections, the APC chieftain said the meeting did not consider such topic.
“We are talking about governance now. People should understand that there is time for governance, there is time for politics. When you start talking about 2023 now, I don’t think we are fair to Nigerians that gave us this mandate.
“Its proper for us now to talk about how we are going to deliver dividends of democracy, how are going to deliver on the mandate given to us by Nigerians before we begin to talk about 2023. From now to 2023 is a life time only God knows how many of us will even reach 2023 but we know that we have mandate of Nigerians to deliver dividends of democracy and that is what we are talking about. We have bigger issues to talk about rather than 2023.”
