North Central Group passes vote of confidence on Ganduje, cautions detractors

North-Central Group passes vote of confidence on Ganduje, cautions detractors

Joel Oladele, Abuja

A group under the aegis of Concerned North- Central APC Stakeholders/Elders Forum has expressed confidence in the leadership prowess of the National Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Umar Ganduje.

Speaking on Wednesday, on behalf of the Forum during a solidarity visit to the Chairman at the National Headquarters of the party, Sen. Ameh Ebute CON, noted that the move became imperative as a way of appreciating Ganduje for his unprecedented achievements since assumption of office.

He added that the group is a true representative of the leadership and members of APC across States in North Central Nigeria, which includes communities in Benue, Plateau, Kogi, Niger, Nasarawa, FCT, and Kwara States.

National Periscope recalls that there was a call for the chairmanship position of APC to be zoned to the North Central, which is the region of the immediate past Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu which some claim did not complete his tenure.

The latest of such calls allegedly came from the immediate past Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello whose campaign posters for the post emerged a couple of weeks ago with reports claiming that having the current Chairman, Dr. Umar Ganduje who is from the North West region as the chairman is an injustice to the North Central.

Although the former later distanced himself from the report, noting that it should be disregarded.

However, Ebute in his remarks during the visit to Ganduje said while the group is aware of efforts to return the office to North Central, the choice of who holds the office should not be limited to regional entitlement but ability of the individual to deliver on his duty, and cautioned the agitators against such move.

“We have by our own free will, and as a collective of true progressives, decided to pay Your Excellency this solidarity visit because we believe this is the best time to physically express our appreciation of the great things you have been doing for our great Party since you were sworn into the office of the National Chairman. Therefore, this is a solidarity visit to our respected National Chairman by Party members of North Central Nigeria to ask and demand that you continue to do more for our Party.

“Of course, Mr Chairman, we are not unaware of growing calls by some elements of the Party from the North Central Zone for reversal of the occupant of the office of the National Chairman based on the zoning arrangements that made Senator Abdullahi Adamu, your predecessor, who is from Nasarawa State in the North Central Zone, the National Chairman of our Party before he resigned in 2023.

“While we acknowledge the efforts of these advocates of returning the Chairman’s office to North Central Zone, we however, believe that the more compelling reason for anybody to advance the manner of person that will occupy the office of the National Chairman of our Party should be about consideration for track record of performance as shown in winning political contests against the opposition. Equally important is how the rank and file members of the Party are directly benefiting from the activities of the Party across the country.

“When we put all these together, we came to the conclusion that you, Your Excellency, ticks all the boxes for a performing excellent Chairman. Indeed, you’re not just a performing National Chairman but a National Chairman that had done the most in the shortest possible time to positively impact individual members of our great party while our party have also recorded impressive electoral strides bereft of rancour under your leadership.” Ebute noted.

The group therefore declared its total support for the chairman in the general interest of the party.

“By these considerations, we hereby declare our unalloyed support for you, Your Excellency, to continue to manage the affairs of our great Party, the APC and to remain in the office of the National Chairman, for the good and development of members of the Party especially for the purpose of ensuring stability in the administration of our great Party.”

Ebute lauded the various achievements of the former Governor of Kano State, especially digitization of the party’s membership registration which he described as unprecedented in the political history of the country.

“We are particularly happy that you’re adopting technology and innovation in the management of the Party affairs. It is a thing of pride to us that our great Party’s membership register is now been digitalised in alignment with global best practices.

“ This is a first in the political history of our great country. This translates to mean that while the opposition was busy doing nothing you put your hand to the plough and got busy working and thinking for the Party. We thank you so much for this, Your Excellency.

“In addition, Your Excellency, you’re blazing a new trail in ideological politics in the political annals of our great country. With the Progressive Institute that you’re structuring, we can boastfully tell opposition parties that we are not the same. Thanks to you Your Excellency, our party is not only ideological driven, it has a school where we impart knowledge and leadership grooming for our members.”

Reacting, Ganduje reiterated his commitment to promises made during his inauguration into the office, adding that no stone will be left unturned until all is achieved.

“It is important to make our party a very strong institution. We promised our party and Nigerians that business is not going to be as usual in APC. We promised to undertake some innovations which we have started. Reconciliation is a very important factor in democracy. Reconciliation is very important for the stability of our political party. Reconciliation is a vital issue for success.

“ Also we promised that there will be electronic registration of the membership of our party which we have already started. It is so vital because democracy is changing, democracy is getting advanced in Nigeria. To win an election we need to consider so many variables, we need to have accurate data with the necessary features that we can forecast, plan and calculate. Election nowadays is not a trial and error, it is scientific, unless you are scientific, you are bound to fail in an election period. 

“Also, we decided in order for our party to have identity, a strong philosophy, a very strong direction, we have gone far to establish the Progressive Institute for our party. This will educate our members in the nitty gritty of democracy; enlighten our members; the institutions that are in charge of elections like the INEC, security agents, the political parties themselves and also to enlighten our monitors to see how far our manifesto is being implemented.” Ganduje said

He therefore appreciated the group for their loyalty and called for support to assist President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to deliver on his Renewed Hope Agenda.

“So we thank you for coming. We have to work together, assist Mr President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his efforts to maintain peace and security in Nigeria. We want to thank him for his efforts in order to rebuild our economy which was so bad but with his commitment, we believe our economy will be put on the right foot by the grace of God,” 

Describing the importance of the North Central zone, Ganduje said it is a perfect example of unity in diversities.

“So, members of our party from the North-Central geopolitical zone, a very important geopolitical zone because, out of the six states, we have five for APC, even the sixth we were about to get it but we have to accept whatever we meet (have). 

“Your zone is a good example of unity in diversity because your geopolitical zone is a good example of diversity in politics – different religions, tribes, ethnic nationalities. Yet, you are able to come together under an umbrella we call APC. We have to thank you for that. 

“A homogeneous geopolitical zone is not able to come together but a heterogeneous geopolitical zone (North-central is able to do that. We thank you for that and we assure you, we will take APC to much higher level in Nigeria.”

He concluded that despite the success recorded in the recent elections across the country, the party will not entertain any distraction as there is still more to achieve.

“The recent elections in the three states, we were able to maintain our states of Imo, Kogi, we narrowly lost Bayelsa state. In the recent bye- elections, we won more than 90%. We have Senators, House of Representatives, State Assembly members. We have another election coming up in Edo state, Ondo state we have election so we have focused our minds on that. So any distraction in the structure of the party will not augur well for the party.”