President Muhammadu Buhari and 19 governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are in support of Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello as the acting chairman of the ruling party.
Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, who disclosed this when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, said the era of Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State as chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the ruling party is gone.
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Dateline Nigeria understands that Buni is currently out of the country.
“Governor Sani Bello must take over on Monday; that’s what the president said, that we should give whatever legal means necessary to make sure that this convention is delivered. It was the president’s order to us as governors.
“He [the president} said I am relying on you to do what is legally necessary, vacate this court order, Abu Sani Bello takes over leadership of the party, constitute all the committees of the convention and ensure the 26th of March date is sacrosanct.
“Governor Sani Bello has President Buhari’s backing and the backing of at least 19 of the 23 APC governors and deputy governors.
“There are some governors that are not fully on board, they are the ones planting fake stories, you know, that this one has resigned, that one has not resigned. You get all kinds of stories in the social media. But what I am telling you are the facts and this is the situation.
“And since Monday when Gov Abu Sani Bello took over, you can see, we have made substantial progress. Convention sub-committees have been formed, they have been sworn in today, they have been reconstituted. Because the subcommittees formed by the earlier leadership had 1,700 members which is half of the capacity of Eagle Square, it’s a recipe for confusion, but now we have compact convention subcommittees and now we are more confident than ever that the convention will take place.
“We are aware there is a court order, we are taking steps to deal with it. We are also proceeding with reconciliation. There are issues in some states like Sokoto, the caretaker committee has received the report and looked at it. The Abdullahi Adamu reconciliation committee submitted an interim report which the former caretaker committee ought to have acted on, but they did not.
“Now it is being acted on. We will ensure that the convention takes place on 26th of March. And immediately after that the new leadership of the party will then announce the programme for the primaries.”
