The
leadership of the All Progressive Congress has directed its governors
to enter into talks with their aggrieved counterparts in the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party.
The 11 APC governors, including Governor
Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, it was gathered, had been asked to
use their contact and speak with the governors on the possibility of
defecting from their party.
Seven PDP governors are at loggerheads with the leadership of the PDP over the running of the party and other issues.
The governors walked out of the PDP mini-convention on August 31 in Abuja to form a faction of the party.
It is not clear if the APC governors have started carrying out the directive of the party’s leaders.
The Interim National Publicity Secretary
of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, confirmed this while speaking with
journalists after the meeting of his party’s National Working Committee
in Abuja in Thursday.
He said that since the party’s governors
were members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, they were in the best
position to woo their aggrieved counterparts from the ruling party.
He said such contact with the aggrieved
governors was not discussed at their meeting and that it was not the
duty of the NWC members to woo the aggrieved governors.
He said, “It isn’t a matter you discuss
at executive meeting but I know that what the party resolved is that
since our governors are also members of the NGF, and they also meet
regularly with these other governors we have left that assignment in the
hands of our governors.
“We have agreed that if and when the
aggrieved governors of the PDP are desirous of making contact with the
party they should do so through our governors.”
But when contacted, the National
Publicity Secretary of the Bamanga Tukur faction of the PDP, Chief Olisa
Metuh, said that governors of the party would not join the APC.
He said that members of the ruling party would resolve their differences.
Metuh said, “There is no committed PDP
member that will go the APC. The PDP offered platform for them to
become governors. They cannot abandon it. We may have our differences.
That does not mean that they will cross over to the APC that its
ideology is ethnic and religious based.”
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