NATIONAL: Buhari, Tinubu, others agreed S/West will produce 2023 candidate – APC chieftain

THE Caretaker Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos State, Tunde Balogun, has disclosed that the founding fathers of the party had an agreement in 2014 that the South-West geopolitical zone would produce the party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 election.

He said it would be “dishonourable” for the party to jettison the agreement now, stressing that President Buhari, the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and many other persons made the “gentleman’s agreement”.

The APC was formed as a consensus party in the buildup to the 2015 election to wrest the reins of power from the People’s Democratic Party which had ruled for 16 years as of that time.

The party is an amalgam of many parties which had tried in their separate ways to assume power at the centre but failed.

 Prominent among the parties were the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Tinubu and others, Congress for Progress Change (CPC) led by Buhari and others, All Peoples’ Party (APP) and a splinter party from the PDP known as nPDP led by former Senate President, Bukola Saraki and others.

Balogun noting that  before the parties became one big and powerful entity today known as APC, which eventually ended the 16-year reign of the PDP by defeating the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, there was an agreement, though unwritten, that power will shift to the Southwest come 2023.

However, there have been insinuations among some party members and chieftains that the resolutions of the National Executive Committee meeting, presided over by Buhari on Tuesday, was a ploy by some party chieftains to hijack the control of the party for personal interest, including scheming towards 2023.

The NEC approved the extension of the six-month tenure of the Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee for another six months. It also approved the immediate dissolution of the party organs at the polling units, wards, local government, states and zonal levels as well as the non-National Working Committee component of the National Executive Committee.

It thereafter approved the immediate reconstitution and composition of the dissolved excos to serve in their respective offices in a caretaker committee capacity, excluding the non-NWC members of NEC.

But speaking on Saturday, Balogun said, “In 2014, the founding fathers of APC had a gentleman’s agreement and they committed themselves to the agreement. The party was victorious because they honoured the agreement they made and everyone worked together for the party in 2015 and 2019.

“According to the 2014 agreement, the South-West should be the zone to produce the presidential candidate in 2023. Among them (those present) were President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu.

“What I want is for this agreement to be honoured by the founding fathers. I have no doubt in my mind that they are men of honour. An agreement was reached and that agreement produced Buhari as the President in 2015 and 2019, so to jettison the agreement now will be dishonourable.

“Like I said, they are men of honour and I hope they will honour the agreement. They know what I’m talking about. Anything different from following the agreement is like shifting the goalpost.”

When asked the other parties to the agreement, Balogun declined.

Some party members have also argued that part of motives of the resolutions was to frustrate the rumoured presidential ambition of Tinubu.  

Asked if he also believed that the NEC resolutions were aimed at thwarting the 2014 agreement, Balogun said, “There are a lot of people who have personal agenda, pushing through all these caretaker ideas and the dissolution of structures looks unconstitutional to me. The caretaker is alien to APC constitution but that is what obtains now. However, as a loyal member of the party, I don’t want to go against the party.

“People, because of their personal agenda and aspirations, are trying to destroy our party and make it unstable. That should not happen. Our party’s interest should not be sacrificed on the altar of personal aspiration or ambition of any individual.

“There is nothing wrong with leaders like Ashiwaju (being supported). He’s one of the greatest leaders we have in Africa; he has charisma, character and he’s a man of his people. If he wants to aspire, it’s his constitutional right to aspire to any position in the land.”

Balogun’s revelation came as a fresh twist to the raging debate over where the ruling party would zone the presidential ticket to ahead of the 2023 election.