Adamu Opens Up: I Never Knew I Would Be APC Chairman A Month Ago

Four days after his emergence as the national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu formally assumed office at the Buhari House national secretariat, saying endorsement of God made him national chairman.

Adamu, who arrived the secretariat at about 10:30am, said his emergence as chairman was by providence, noting that as recent as a month ago, he never knew he would become chairman of the party.

Adamu emerged the consensus candidate as the preferred choice of President Muhammadu Buhari, a decision that was endorsed by all other aspirants via a written commitment.

Adamu resumes

Speaking during the handing-over ceremony Wednesday in Abuja, the former governor of Nasarawa state said less than 12 months to the general election, all hands must be on deck to secure victory for the party as President Muhammadu Buhari would not tolerate failure from anyone.

He said: “It is only through God that we have emerged as the new National Working Committee (NWC) of our great party. Now, it looks so simple, but it is not our doing but the doing of Almighty God who made all this possible.

“A month ago, I didn’t know I will become the Chairman of APC. Here I am today, receiving the instrument and authority from the outgoing Chairman. Only God can do this. It is not my personal wisdom nor my charisma. It is not personal doings. There may be elements on the way, but all these were made possible by the endorsement of Almighty God.

“I want to say on behalf of the new NWC that it is not going be an easy time for us. We have a major event, that is, going to test the waters about how stable we are as a party, and that is the general election that is coming. For me, by the time we start working, our main task will be how we handle the elections as a party. How will we win the general election? People are talking, ‘oh, APC does not have an incumbent on the ticket’. We will have the honour and the integrity and the legacy of the current president on the ticket.

“We will work day and night. We have less than 12 months to face the general election. So, everybody should buckle up. The little I have had about the president is that he has complete allergy for failure. So, failure will not be in APC from today. We will work for success together. If any of you my colleagues has an issue, don’t begrudge me. If there is any issue, let me know.

“I promise you in the spirit of collective leadership that teamwork is the only way. I cannot deliver alone. What I am asking for is something called ‘loyalty’. You have to be loyal. You must have one team. If you bring divisive tendency, we will deal with it. This country is greater than any one of us. And this party is bigger than any single member of this party. So, that is the spirit.”

Buni speaks

Earlier, national chairman of the defunct Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), charged the new NWC to sustain the gains of the past.

“We have done our best from the membership registration and revalidation. We have done the ward, local government, state Congresses and up to the convention. But that cannot be without problems here and there. By and large, we have succeeded.

“We can say we have recorded 70% success. A bigger and larger political party like APC with over 41 million memberships, part of democracy is to agree and disagree at some points. But it is all about human management. The ability to manage the situation is what will keep this party together and stronger again, and again.

“So, as at it is and as members of NWC, you should study Mr President’s speech and that should be your guide. And also, I want to thank you most importantly for this opportunity, all your efforts both individually and collectively for making our task easier throughout our stewardship”, Buni said.

CNG tackles Wike, Ortom

Meanwhile, ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has tackled Rivers state Governor Nyesom Wike, over the latter’s comment regarding the zoning of the presidency by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

During a press briefing Wednesday in Abuja, CNG spokesman, Abdul-azeez Suleiman said the PDP disrupted zoning arrangements it had earlier emplaced in 2011, following the death of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, by producing President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as his successor.

The CNG warned that “the plot to use Ortom’s zoning committee to deprive the North the opportunity to field candidates for the election would not work as nothing would stop northerners contesting the presidency in all the parties.”

The group said Wike “should realize and accept the reality that whatever zoning arrangement that might have existed in particularly the PDP, had been jettisoned, discredited, abandoned and utterly destroyed by their own selfish actions in 2011 and 2015.”

He said the North was “focusing on the necessity of searching for an upright, physically healthy, mentally alert, knowledgeable, detribalized leader free of any moral encumbrances.

“The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has watched the unfolding scenarios in build up to the 2023 fresh round of general elections with particular attention to the presidential election.

“CNG has particularly observed the desperate manoeuvres of some southern forces aimed at depriving the North of its inherent democratic and moral right to field candidates for the presidency under the pretext of a controversial zoning arrangement claimed to exist in some of the major political parties in the country.

“We have observed also that whereas the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may not have clearly alluded to any rotation arrangement yet, the pressure is more in its main challenger, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with elements like the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, leading the onslaught.

“We also note that this agenda for dubious political domination is one that on the active supported and encouragement by the insatiable hatred and greed of certain northern collaborators represented by the likes of Samuel Ortom, whose administration in Benue has acquired the reputation of being the worst in the history of the State.”

He added: “The CNG, after taking stock of events unfolding in Nigeria as the 2023 elections season draws nearer, noting especially the unrelenting disturbances created by certain interest groups in the South, has inadvertently being compelled to place on record that the ambiguous zoning arrangement sought to be enforced by the likes of Wike and their cohorts like Ortom to defraud the North out of the 2023 presidency has, apart from being undemocratic in concept, also long been jettisoned by the same people seeking to revive it today.

He accused Wike of taking up “the vanguard that jettisoned whatever arrangement there might have been in the PDP, when they shamelessly insisted on usurping power that should have rightly rotated to the North in 2011.

And in 2015, in total disregard to the agreement now claimed by Wike and his co-conspirators, insisted on, and ultimately produced the party’s sole presidential candidate from the South, when it was incontrovertibly the turn of the North, an action that ultimately led to the destabilization of the PDP and eventual final collapse.

“This turn of events that saw the South holding the presidency for 14 out of the 16 years PDP was in power, while the North only enjoyed two, are enough testimonies that the South had inevitably scuttled whatever arrangement for zoning that it now seeks to enforce.”

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