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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) may have taken a disturbing turn on Wednesday as majority of the presidential aspirants billed to attend a reconciliation meeting slated for Abuja fragrantly shunned the parley.
The aspirants that contested against the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the party primary, have not actively participated in the party’s activities or shown interest in the buildup to presidential campaign.
Tinubu defeated former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; Vice President, Yemi Osibanjo, Senate President, Ahmad Lawan among others to clinch the sole ticket of the ruling party.
Asiwaju polled a total figure of 1,271 votes to emerge victorious at the end of the Special National Convention of the party.
However, miffed by the disturbing gulf between the candidate, the aggrieved aspirants and the effects on the ruling party ahead of the kickoff of the campaign, one of the presidential aspirants, Nicolas Felix, had convened a reconciliation meeting to unite the gladiators.
The strategic meeting, according to the convener, was meant to bring all the warring stakeholders to a dialogue table to brainstorm and “adopting winning campaign strategies that seek to carry every Nigerian along in a bid to coast home to victory ahead of the 2023 general elections.”
Although, the organiser claimed that the strategic meeting was postponed without given reasons, sources close to the aggrieved aspirants disclosed that they never showed any interest for the peace meeting.
A statement issued by the convener of the aborted roundtable, only noted that a new date will be communicated soon.
“Please be informed that the strategic meeting of 2023 presidential aspirants of the APC, scheduled to hold on Wednesday, August 31 has be postponed. A new date for the meeting will be communicated soon. Apologies for any inconvenience(s) that this might cause,” the statement read.
Reacting to the postponement, a source closed to one of the aspirants, however argued that most of the key presidential aspirants invited for the meeting did not actually want to be part of the meeting.
The party chieftain further claimed that a particular aspirant from the North did not even acknowledge the invitation letter sent to him, let alone indicating interest to attend.
His words “It seems some of these aspirants are yet to come to terms with our presidential candidate because some of them are not seen to be rallying the needed support for the party yet.
“All of them are well informed about this meeting. The organisers even issued statement twice to remind them, but some did not show interest at all. I can inform you that only nine of them were ready to attend and nine of them are among the heavyweights we expected to show up,” the source revealed.
However, a statement from the office of the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is supposed to be in attendance, indicated that he had departed Abuja for United States of America early Wednesday morning, to seek global partnerships and support for Nigeria’s recently launched Energy Transition Plan.
According to a statement by Osinbajo’s media aide, Laolu Akande, the ETWG, which is chaired by the VP comprises relevant ministers and other top government officials.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the party has denied any knowledge of the event, stressing that the conveners did not carry the party along.
“Truly, we are not aware of any of such meeting. We only saw it in the media. If they actually informed the party, it was not discussed in our meeting. You ought to understand that matter of such magnitude should have emanated from the leadership of the party. So, if they held such meeting, the party was not party of it to the best of my knowledge,” a source at the party’s leadership told the Daily Sun in confidence.
