Chairmen of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) across the states yesterday passed a vote of confidence in the party’s National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
The state chairmen spoke at the party’s NWC meeting at the party’s national secretariat yesterday in Abuja.
Addressing reporters after the meeting, acting Secretary of the Forum of APC State Chairmen and Cross River State Chairman Alphonsus Ogar said the forum was impressed by Adamu’s report and pledged to support him and the NWC.
Dispelling rumours of dissension between the party’s NWC and the forum, Ogar said: “There’s only one APC, and we came again in solidarity to say we are strongly behind our national chairman and the NWC.”
The forum’s scribe also debunked reports of a frosty relationship with their governors, especially over the compilation of names for consideration for federal appointments.
He said: “Those letters were addressed to state chairmen and every state chairman is loyal to his governor. Where there’s no governor, they are loyal to the stakeholders. There’s no such crack. We must commend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for keeping to his promise that state chairmen should be captains of these ships. I can assure you that the letters were addressed to us.”
Adamu had assured the state chairmen that President Tinubu would patronize and reward the party at the state and national levels for contributing to its victory in this year’s general election.
The national chairman told the state chieftains that the President had begun extensive consultations, assuring them that various appointments would be released in the next two months.
He said: “It is our hope and prayers that the President will come along with us in that regard and strengthen the relationship of the party in the states and at the national levels. You will enjoy some level of patronage in the new government. Those are the key issues that we do hope to share with you in the course of this meeting.
“The President has just started. He is doing his extensive consultation before coming up with his nominees for ministers. The nomination of the ministers will come first. They will go through their screening until they are pronounced after they have been submitted by the President, and Mr. President will formally appoint his ministers and swear them in.
“These are some of the exercises that will take place in the next two months. It cannot happen by next week, but certainly that is what we should be expecting.”
Adamu urged the state chairmen to manage the party well to ensure its victory in the off-session elections in three states in November.
The Nation