Breaking: Tinubu ‘To Make 2,000 Appointments’ As Campaign List Is Inconclusive

The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is planning to appoint 2,000 members to the newly constituted Presidential Campaign Council of the party to appease aggrieved governors and members of the National Working Committee (NWC).

CityNews gathered that some APC governors, especially Governors Ben Ayade of Cross River and AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State and NWC members are dissatisfied with the 422-member campaign council.

The governors were said to have tabled their grievances before the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum and Governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, and the national chairman of the APC, Adamu Abdullahi.

Recall that a leaked letter that went viral had emerged online on Thursday suggesting all is not well within the ruling party.

In the leaked letter, the APC National Chairman accused Tinubu of breaching the agreement he had with the NWC with regard to the composition of the presidential campaign council.

Adamu said the presidential candidate is operating solo whereas winning elections is supposed to be a collaborative effort.

The NWC had made some recommendations to Bola Tinubu before the announcement of the Campaign Council, but the presidential candidate had refused to follow those recommendations according to the purported letter.

However, the APC, in a swift reaction, denied any letter originated from the chairman to the presidential candidate on such an issue.

The denial was contained in a statement on Thursday issued by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Barr. Felix Morka.

According to Morka, there is no disagreement between Adamu and Tinubu neither did the viral letter originate from the party chairman has been alleged.

He added that the party will not be distracted by any attempt from those who want to cause a crisis within the APC.

Speaking to The PUNCH, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment and spokesperson for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo stated that the list released on Friday was inconclusive.

According to the Minister, the earlier published list contained names of leaders in each directorate, adding that a supplementary list of over 2,000 ‘membership cadre’ is on the way.

He said, “All their nominees will be included. The list was released in two parts. The one we released was the first one. In the coming days, more than 2,000 additional names will be released.”

On the difference between the membership cadre and the first, he said the first list contained the heads of each directorate.

He stated, “For instance, in my directorate which is ‘public affairs’, you will see only three names. And, of course, you know only three persons cannot run my department for the whole country.

“Even under Bayo Onanuga in media and publicity, there are only three or four names there. That also cannot run a whole campaign.

“Now, what we are saying is that with the release of the membership cadre, we will now have more than 100 people under each directorate, including mine.

“That’s why I said there is absolutely nothing to fear. The 422-member list is not all the people nominated for our campaign. You know we are more organised than those other people who are falling every day. So, don’t worry.”

Keyamo, however, dismissed concerns raised by the APC NWC members that they were not permitted to properly vet the list before it was released to the public.

“They were allowed to scrutinise it. There was a proper synergy between the candidate and the NWC. Beyond the second batch, we still have the governors and governorship candidates who will attend to their state campaign councils.’’

“We are to further review their names to be on the nominees’ list. I am talking about the campaign council members at the state level. That one is still coming. Here, we will have chairman, deputy chairman, media publicity for different states. You can see the first list is nothing compared to the remaining ones we have compiled. I am sure by the time we unveil all the membership lists, the other political parties will run away,” he noted.