• Mulls 2m march for president’s re-election

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) passed a vote of confidence in President Bola Tinubu and the Abdullahi Umar Ganduje-led National Working Committee (NWC) during the meeting of the highest decision-making organ of the party yesterday.

The inkling that President Tinubu would receive the confidence vote started on his arrival for the meeting, when the participants overwhelmingly gave him a reverberating endorsement with a welcome shout of “no vacancy at Aso Rock” after singing the usual mantra song of “on your mandate we shall stand.”

Apparently keying into the endorsement, the Chairman of the APC Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) and Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, who formally moved the motion for the confidence vote, hinged it on President Tinubu’s performance in turning around the hitherto declining fortunes of the country.

He eulogised President Tinubu for increasing the FAAC allocations to the state governors, crushing insecurity in the country to a tolerable extent, and putting measures in place to reduce the cost of living in the country, announcing: “I, Governor Hope Uzodimma, formally move a motion for a vote of confidence in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

In seconding the motion, the former Governor of Edo State and ex-chairman of the ruling party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, revealed that a two-million-man march will soon be organised where Nigerians will assemble to beg President Tinubu to re-contest his position.

Warning that the future of every member in the APC vehicle depends on President Tinubu’s performance, Oshiomhole expressed happiness that Nigerians have watched in astonishment the transformative programmes of President Tinubu.

He said: “I am now able to go to my constituency and say that the worst is over. It is no longer an endless price increase because what you pay for rice in December is much better now. If things continue to go down, I can assure you, Mr President, that Nigerians will beg you to re-contest, and there will be a two-million-man march to plead that Asiwaju should re-contest for our own national interest.

“We are also the ambassadors and spokesmen of the party, and we must tell Nigerians of what we do. The opposition’s business is to demarket the ruling party, but their legitimacy lies before us. We have to promote what we are doing right and remind them what they did wrong. We have to remind them that the people are not comfortable and that, because you are working on it, you were working on the taxation system. The basic thing in leadership is that you should not say this is how I met it and how you left it. That is why your reform proposal on taxation has gained weight in the entire country, even among those who are not within that bracket,” he said.

Weighing in on the endorsement, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, said: “As a result of all these improvements in all the sectors, members highlighted that we are witnessing a very quiet revolution in our country.

“As a result, members of our NEC doubled down on the vote of confidence passed on Mr President during the National Caucus meeting. An absolute vote of confidence was passed on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu today in recognition of the administration’s bold and unprecedented programme of economic reform, which clearly now, indisputably, is beginning to bear fruit and requires all of us to support so that our country can continue to develop and assure our future,” he said while speaking to newsmen after the meeting.

While passing a vote of confidence in the Ganduje-led National Working Committee (NWC), President Tinubu, in his keynote speech during the meeting, said: “The NWC is doing a good job, and I am happy with them. In all the various states, let us set up reconciliatory committees to liaise with these aggrieved leaders. I am appealing to them; please calm down.”