President Muhammadu Buhari has warned leaders and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to desist from name-calling and backstabbing ahead of the upcoming March 26 Convention.
The President made this known in a statement by the senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Mallam Garba Shehu.
He urged members to remain steadfast and maintain its unity if the party is to continue in the path of victory and its dominance at all levels throughout the country.
President Buhari asked members to look at the once-powerful, ”main opposition” of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) now enfeebled and adrift and learn lessons in disunity, mismanagement and corruption.
He said they failed in 16 years in power and a failure as opposition.
The president who maintained that despite the fact they are entitled to their own share of dissent and intra-party discord noted that these are common in all parties, left and right all over the world.
President Buhari also warned that parties splintered by competing egos destine themselves to the worst possible fate.
He noted that as the country prepares for the long run up to the 2023 presidential election, they all expect a robust debate on the issues that matter and what is going in the APC should be a reflection of this, not the infighting they are seeing.
According to him, there must be no more distractions ahead of the convention to choose new leaders.
He recalled that the APC started out with a confidence of victory and the party today enjoys that confidence in nearly two-thirds of the 36 states.
Yet, he noted, this is a party that has been in existence barely for eight years, becoming the dominant party because it has thrown open its doors to defectors from other parties, big and small.
He stressed that this alone, addition to the fact they didn’t start on the note of arrogance of power, nor see government as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement, to be held at all costs, but a vehicle to bring development to all without discrimination-political, ethnic or regional to Nigeria made this success possible.
He stated that the party, he went on to note, is proud of the fact that in its short period of existence, it has won two general elections decisively and despite losing a few states in 2019, it steadfastly expanded its pan-Nigerian outlook with significant defections of the opposition Governors and parliamentarians into its fold.
The President pointed out that It is equally clear that over the last week or so, the internal management affairs of the APC have been afforded generous media coverage – over and above its importance to the voters of Nigeria.
Stressing that It is important to ask what benefits the poor are getting during the period of intense negative coverage.
According to him, when precisely the party’s convention is held and who is the party’s chairman is hardly a matter for the average voter, vastly more important is who convention delegates will elect as the party’s flagbearer in the coming weeks to take forward the party’s platform to the people in the general election in February next year.
He therefore called on the media to put matters into perspective as no one is debating policy differences and none of the declared aspirants and any of those that may step forward would change because of who may be in the party in the chairman’s seat.
President Muhammadu Buhari urged the media not to focus on the routine internal divisions and magnify them into subject of discussion.
Bello Wakili
