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• Plot post-return showdown over campaign council’s snub
From Fred Itua, Abuja
Some governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have in recent weeks made separate, unpublicised trips to London and Paris to meet President Bola Tinubu, Daily Sun can report, as anger builds within the party over who was included, and who was left out of the 2027 Presidential Campaign Council.
Sources familiar with the trips said the governors travelling were largely those whose names were missing from the campaign council list released in August, or who felt shortchanged by the roles assigned to them.
Rather than raising the matter as a group, the governors have approached the President individually. One source familiar with the London meetings said the governors used the opportunity to press personal complaints about how their state campaign structures had been organised, without officials from the Presidency or the campaign secretariat present.
Daily Sun gathered that the individual meetings have frustrated governors who believe the grievance ought to be resolved collectively, and that the frustration is now driving plans for a formal, group engagement with Tinubu once he returns to the country.
Daily Sun gathered that within the Progressive Governors Forum, the governors intend to insist on a second sit down with the President, arguing that the meeting held before his trip abroad left the campaign council question, among other matters, unresolved.
At that meeting, sources said, the governors will press Tinubu to review the council’s composition and correct what they describe as errors that could affect coordination of the campaign at the grassroots.
They are also expected to raise concerns about a political coalition seen by some in the party as working against APC structures in certain states, an issue that has run alongside the campaign council dispute in recent weeks.
The coalition question came into public view at the weekend when Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, speaking on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, said the matter admitted no middle ground and would be raised directly with the President on his return.
The Progressive Governors’ Forum, chaired by the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, had earlier resolved that APC governors would not support any arrangement outside the party. A Supreme Court judgment on an election related matter last weekend has strengthened the governors’ hand on this point, given a long line of rulings holding that elected officials who defect from their sponsoring party risk losing their seats.
Party insiders said the two issues, the campaign council list and the coalition, have become intertwined in the governors’ calculations, since several of those pushing hardest on the coalition question are also among those omitted or sidelined from the council. This overlap, sources said, is part of why the Europe meetings have taken on added significance, with some governors reportedly using the informal settings to test how far the President is willing to go to address both concerns before a formal meeting is held.
With Tinubu expected back in the country shortly, attention now turns to whether he will grant the governors the collective audience they are pushing for, or allow the pattern of scattered, individual engagements to continue.
It was learnt that within the presidency, Tinubu is aware of the governors’ concerns and has given no indication that either the campaign structure or his relationship with the party’s state chief executives is under strain.
