APC leadership tussle: Fayemi dares Buhari, denies knowledge of any consensus agreement

..Says President’s preferred candidates must slug it out with other contenders

…APC National Assembly Caucus backs consensus arrangement

…Preferred Chairmanship Candidate will emerge Friday — Gbajabimila

By Uthman Salami, Seth Akanni

The Ekiti state Governor and the Chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has dared President Muhammadu Buhari over consensus candidate for the chairmanship position of the party.

Governor Fayemi emphasised that President Muhammadu Buhari’s  preferred candidates would have to slug it out with other contenders, noting that the President would have to campaign for his candidates before they could emerge.

Recall that it was earlier reported by Nigerian NewsDirect that the Governors had expressed their support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s preferred candidate in effort to conduct a hitch-free National Convention.

The Governors and Buhari had been earlier reported to have agreed on a former Governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdullahi Adamu as consensus candidate for the chairmanship seat of the party during a meeting held at the Presidential Villa with 16 governors in attendance.

On the other hand, the APC National Assembly Caucus has thrown weight behind the emergence of consensus Chairmanship Candidate.

In the same vein, earlier, the Chairman of Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) and Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu revealed that all Governors in the party had agreed to support Buhari’s preferred candidate.

According to him, “The Governors are united. The Governors are unanimous in support of Mr. President.”

But speaking at a high-level policy dialogue organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), yesterday, Fayemi said that he was not only unaware of any agreement on consensus, but also insisted that the President would have to campaign for such preferred choices to delegates during the convention.

He noted that though it was within the rights of Buhari to have preferred candidates, he was not aware of that.

The Governor of Ekiti State, Fayemi made this known while responding to one of the questions asked during the interactive session.

“As for your question on whether the President (Muhammadu Buhari) has anointed anyone, I have no knowledge of that. But the President is well within his rights to have a preferred candidate.

“But in our party, let him come and campaign for that candidate at the Eagles Square on Saturday. if his candidate wins, fine. If his candidate loses. Well, he is going to have to live with it.”

Meanwhile, the APC National Assembly Caucus expressed their desire to come up with a consensus candidate before the convention day.

The National Assembly members on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC) said the agreement to ensure the emergence of the national chairman of the party through a consensus arrangement has been reached.

This stance was made known after the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, visited President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday ahead of the convention.

While speaking with state house correspondents, Gbajabiamila described the meeting as productive, and vital to spur all stakeholders to approach the convention as a unified front.

According the Speaker, “Mr President also emphasised the need for us to ensure that we have a successful convention on the 26th of this month, March.

“This convention, by way of emphasis, is a very important convention for us in the APC, and by the grace of God, through our processes and procedures, at different levels of the party, the convention would be a very successful one and very peaceful one.”

Gbajabimila added that, “We hope that we would have achieved so much consensus in selecting and electing the officers for this party so that when we go into the convention, most of the officers would be for affirmation or confirmation.”

Expressing optimism that by today all stakeholders would have agreed to a consensus candidate for the position of the national chairman.

He maintained that, “The essence of this engagement is for the party to achieve consensus, and consensus is a process. It doesn’t just happen like that.”

However, as at the time of filing this report seven Chairmanship aspirants who had been screened by the party has not yielded for consensus candidate.

These aspirants include Saliu Mustapha, Sani Musa, Tanko Al-Makura, Abdullahi Adamu, George Akume, Abdulaziz Yari and Mohammed Etsu.