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• Convention a carnival to endorse Tinubu’s re-election – Stakeholders
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The much-publicised 8th edition of the All Progressives Congress (APC) 2026 National Elective Convention officially got underway yesterday with the preliminary activities that will culminate in the grand finale today at Eagle Square in Abuja.
On the first day of the event, the party’s scorecards were presented, motions for the adoption of the ward, local government, state, zonal congresses, mode of election for the convention, and dissolution of the party’s executives were successfully concluded.
As the ruling party, so much will be at stake as the party’s stakeholders have boasted that they intend to use the event to make a bold statement, prove a supremacy point of political might in many ways and more importantly intimidate, showcase its readiness for next year’s presidential election particularly.
Again, the convention will also provide a bright opportunity to send a warning signal to the disoriented and destabilised opposition parties about the party’s mission for a winner takes all in the polls.
Expectedly, logistics have been perfected to top-notch level, and all necessary arrangements concluded and successfully test run with Friday’s preliminary event. Participants have equally been mobilised, especially the over 8,453 delegates across the country, aspirants have also been nominated and screened just as all machineries are in motion to organise, according to the Convention centre Committee, a world standard event that will stand the test of time in years to come.
Like the previous editions, the 8th edition of the APC elective convention has been filled with political intrigues, horse-trading, scheming, clashes of interest, anointing of aspirants by the power that be, and intrusive legal hurdles.
Today’s event will also be the climax of the deft, high-tech manipulations and consensus-building that characterised the party’s already-conducted and adopted congresses at the wards, local governments, and states across the country, as well as the zonal congress held this week. From the benefit of hindsight, the convention will most likely go down in history as the type that the presidency, the state governors under the platform of APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), and the national leadership of the party mildly flexed muscles before arriving at a partial consensus on options in endorsing and electing the new executive officers of the party at those levels.
Ordinarily, as an elective convention, the event ought to alter the configuration and composition of the party’s national leadership, but the greater number of the positions, going unopposed, will only require a voice vote, while very few will be keenly contested, baring last minute arrangement to settle for a unity list.
But some party stakeholders tried to rock the boot in still going ahead to purchase the expression of interest and nomination forms, which was against the resolution of the ruling party during its last National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in December last year in Abuja, which micro-zoned the positions to the states.
And reminding the intruders who purchased the nomination forms to contest of the NEC resolution to micro-zone the positions to states, the leadership in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, warned them to be guided accordingly.
The 25 elective positions up for grabs but already micro-zoned to states in accordance with the resolution adopted during its last year’s NEC meeting include the National Chairman, Plateau state, two National Deputy Chairmen, Borno and Enugu, National Secretary, Osun, and Deputy National Secretary, Nasarawa state.
Others include the six zonal National Vice Chairmen earmarked for Imo, Kaduna, Rivers, Ondo, Niger, and Adamawa, National Legal Adviser, Katsina, National Treasurer, Ebonyi, National Financial Secretary, Jigawa, National Organising Secretary, Kebbi, National Welfare Secretary, Abia, National Publicity Secretary, Delta, National Auditor, Bauchi, National Women Leader, Edo, National Youth Leader, Lagos, National Leader PWDs, Ogun, nine Deputy Secretaries and Leaders, and six zonal ex-officios.
At the close of the deadline for the purchase of nomination forms and screening of the aspirants, many of the positions seem to have been micro-zoned to the individual, with a greater percentage of the incumbent NWC members contesting unopposed.
But, to fiercely contest against each other include the Deputy National Chairman South, which saw the incumbent, Emma Eneukwu and former secretary of the Forum of APC State Chairmen, Ben Nwoye and the National Welfare Secretary, featuring current occupant, Chief Donatus Nwankpa and Nduka Anyanwu squaring up against each other.
Expectedly, there have been series of open and secret grumblings and complaints from those eyeing certain plum positions from outside, which unfortunately have culminated in the N100 million legal suits at a Federal High Court and subsequent drastic measures of the party, wielding big sticks like clamping suspensions on some of them.
Part of other extreme measures the national leadership took to reduce the level of competitiveness and friction include the alleged printing of only one nomination form for each of the positions or in some cases at most two nomination forms, particularly in some states where the governors are latently or secretly interested in another aspirant other than the substantive officers.
Many pundits believe that one thing incontrovertible in the build-up to this elective convention was the domineering power and influence the governors wielded and deployed in ensuring the emergence of their loyalists at the ward, local government, state and zonal congresses.
Their influences were clearly overwhelming that their cronies from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who defected with them to the APC, emerged winners over the founding leaders of the party, disgracefully relegated into inconsequential background.
Beyond the intriguing circumstances surrounding the politics of who outsmarted each other, the convention will end up as a mere carnival and razzmatazz to glamorously endorse the second-term re-election bid of President Bola Tinubu for next year’s presidential election.
Saturday Sun can confirm that today’s event will be a prelude to the party’s primary and gathering of stakeholders, primarily to endorse the unity list and, more importantly, sing praises of standing on the mandate of President Tinubu as the sole candidate of the party for next year’s presidential poll.
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Confirming the main target the party stakeholders intend to achieve with the convention, members of the convention coordinating committee, comprising former Cross River governor, Prof Ben Ayade, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara, had declared that President Tinubu will be unanimously adopted as the candidate of the party for the 2027 presidential election.
According to Dogara; “As far as I am concerned, this convention will offer us the opportunity not only to showcase what the party can do, but to render an account to the teeming populace, ahead of the 2027 election and adopt President Tinubu as our sole candidate for the poll.”
Another executive convention committee member and APC deputy governorship candidate for the November last year Anambra State poll, Senator Uche Ekwunife, described the convention as an adoption of President Tinubu, and preparation for the 2027 elections.
She noted, “Let Nigerians know that APC is prepared. We are not just prepared for the convention, but also for the 2027 elections, when we are going to return our President Tinubu and our Vice-President Senator Kashim Shettima.
“We want to let Nigerians know that we are ready, prepared, confident that in 2027 APC is going to win a landslide, 90 per cent of all the votes cast in Nigeria. President Tinubu is coming back,” she boasted.
Nothing can be farther from the truth than the claims that the convention is more of a prelude to the party primary and endorsement of President Tinubu for next year’s poll otherwise, there is no justification for assembling over a thousand participants across the country to converge on Abuja just to be part of the consensus for the automatic tickets to the national officers of the party.
A partial public holiday was declared for the civil servants on the first day of the convention, movement was restricted around the venue of the event, and office and business activities around the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were equally grounded to a halt just to perhaps send a clear signal that the presidential election had been won even before the actual voting.
And assuring on the readiness of logistics and preparedness for the convention, overall chairman of the planning committee, Rt Hon Aminu Bello Masari, had declared that it will be a historic and memorable one.
“Yes, we have some challenges, but do you live life without challenges? Exactly, there are some because we face challenges. Life without challenges is meaningless. As for our readiness, why are you asking the obvious when you have seen it? I can tell you that we are ready and the event will go on as planned,” he assured.
Similar assurances have also come from the party’s national chairman, Prof Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, who expressed enthusiasm over the efforts of the planning committee.
He said: “We are more than prepared for the convention; the committees have made all the preparations to ensure that we hold a hitch-free convention. I have worked with the committees. They have raised enough resources to ensure that the implementation of the programmes and processes that we have go hitch-free. I think we don’t have an issue with the convention itself,” he said.
In a desperate attempt to justify the automatic return ticket to the national officers, the about-to-be re-elected National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Basiru told newsmen after their screening that; “We have been able to ensure functional and effective secretariat for our party, with an efficient and a group-based capital of enlarging capacity of the party.”
“In terms of the process of the party, the conduct of primaries and organisation of activities, we have been able to ensure that we brought a seamless and a safe-lying competence into that office. One of the tasks we have to do is to consolidate the strength of the party, and to ensure that our party structure, from the polling units up to the national level, becomes very active.
“The National Advisory Council of our party particularly needs to be activated immediately after the convention. We believe that if we activate all our structures, make them functionally efficient, APC will continue to remain forward with electoral friction and democratic consolidation.
“I am the only aspirant for that position, and we believe that the convention will be peaceful, one of the most colourful and eventful conventions of any political party in Nigeria. That is why the party has assembled eminent personalities and empowered them to work to ensure that we have a very educative and democratic convention this week,” he said.
However, if the admittance to the colourful nature of the event is not in any doubt, the claim by both Prof Yiltwada and Ajibola on empowering the planning committee is shrouded in doubts because, despite the glowing tributes and expression of readiness for the convention, issues like challenges of funds to prosecute some of the projects and logistics for the event were a setback.
Related to the financial constraints, issues of litigations by the aggrieved aspirants denied nomination forms were another challenge that both the party leaders and the committee members struggled to sweep under the carpet.
In his response to the legal suit, Masari said: “Like I said, and I will repeat. APC is a responsible party in Nigeria. In line with federal character, all offices are zoned. When you purchase form for the position not zoned for your state, we suspect that you did that to only create confusion. Who likes confusion? The way our country is, the structures of the party are on a zonal basis. The NWC members are distributed according to zones.
“So, if you are contesting for an office that is not in your zone, how can you say you are being democratic? We suspect these kinds of people are interested, maybe as agents, to come and destroy our party, which we will not agree. And I know Nigerians will not agree.
“We are not aware that anybody has gone to court. We have not been served. I am sure you know we are the responsible party. If we are served, we will take notice of that. Can you pay for something that you don’t have? You can only hold something that you have,” he said
