Baring any last-minute change of plan by the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the party might officially allow Southern Nigeria to present a candidate that will succeed incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.
Authoritative sources within the ranks of the APC, on Monday, confirmed that APC governors met in Abuja and concluded they would throw their weight behind “flipping of all existing national offices” during the tenure of former substantive National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, who is from the South, and his Secretary from the North.
The governors will be meeting with President Buhari as national leader of the party sometime this week to table their position and secure his approval.
A source, who was privy to the Abuja meeting of all APC governors led by Governor Fayemi of Ekiti on Sunday, said “all national positions and offices, as at the time of Oshiomhole, will be swapped between the North and the South, meaning that the North will keep the office of the National Chairman in the proposed arrangement while the South will have the office of the National Secretary.”
Pending the ratification of the governors’ recommendations by the President, it goes without saying that the APC would be prepared to zone its presidential slot to the South.
Asked whether the governors were specific about which part of the South to which the APC would be conceding the presidential slot, the impeccable source explained that everything would remain “some sort of basket arrangement” between the North and the South until the president grants them audience this week, “after which the process of microzoning to the components of the South (Southeast, Southwest and South South) will begin.”
The APC governors have endorsed a national convention for February 2022.
The impeccable source within the high echelon of the party stated that the Sunday meeting of the APC governors in Abuja confirmed that the weekends within the first three weeks of February have been left open for approval of the party’s national leader, President Buhari. “We left open the first three weeks of February, one of the weekends of which the national convention of our great party must hold, pending the approval of the national leader, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari,” said the source.
