National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, may be the end loser in the predetermined arrangement to reposition the party ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Multiple party sources confided in Sunday INDEPENDENT that the Mai Mala Buni’s Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) is bent on dismantling the APC to displace loyalists of Tinubu from the commanding heights of the party.
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the APC had on June 25, 2020, dissolved its National Working Committee (NWC) where Tinubu and his associates had a clear majority.
They lost the battle as the management of the party structure is now in the hands of a caretaker committee and state governors who are battling to reassert their control over the party’s machinery.
Although the general view is that Tinubu will run for the presidency in 2023, but he has not announced any such intentions.
Sources said the former Lagos State governor now experiences serious rivals in the party.
The divisions in the party are said to be led by the camps of Nasir el Rufai, governor of Kaduna State and Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transport on one side; and deposed chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, on the other.
Other factions within the party include Kebbi State governor, Atiku Bagudu; Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi and Works Minister, Babatunde Fashola.
All the warriors are said to be modest about their ambitions, but many have their eyes on the 2023 general polls.
“Don’t forget that an Abuja High Court ruling on March 5, 2020, which ordered Oshiomhole to obey his suspension by his ward in Edo State, opened the fault lines of the APC pitching its governors against Tinubu.
“Tinubu is known to have installed Oshiomhole and has being his back bone, shielding him from the party’s ambitious state chief executives who see the national chairman as a stumbling block to their 2023 presidential aspirations.
“With the court ruling, believed to have been procured by proxy by the governors, the stage was set for an epic battle with the national leader,” said a party chieftain who does not want his name published.
dailyindependent
