The National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Ganduje has said that President Bola Tinubu and his predecessor, former President Muhammadu Buhari are amongst many other top members of the party, attending the NEC Meeting on September 12, 2024.
“We have the NEC meeting for which every quarter we are supposed to meet. So very soon, specifically on the 12th of September we will hold the NEC meeting which Mr President and governors and former president will also be there.
Also, we will be approaching so many things that our national working committee has undertaken to be confirmed by the NEC meeting.
Speaking on the forthcoming Edo elections which is coming on the 21st of September, he said he believe their campaign is with high spirit, “We are getting ready for that election and we believe we will be able to recover our state because it was an APC state but because of Internal bubbles we lost it to PDP but we are sure we will recover that state.
“For Ondo state, it’s already an APC state and the former governor when he died with a number of problems we were able to resolve those issues. We conducted primaries, we succeeded in getting the person that they want.
“We are also getting ready for that election which is coming up in November. If we win Edo we will be getting an additional state for the party. It will be 21 states out of 36.
“Next year there will be Anambra which has been a state governed by APGA and for many years but we have introduced a new scheme.
“The north, south east political zone are all claiming that they have been marginalised. The southeast geopolitical zone. But what we are telling them is that those marginalisation have been created by them.
“How can you have five states and ruled by four political parties. What will be your political bargain?
“So we have introduced a new phenomenon which we call the political marginalisation of the southeast geopolitical zone where we are working very hard to ensure that we get more states from that zone and we want to start with Anambra, already we have Ebonyi, Imo states, now we are encroaching into that zone to ensure that we capture most of the states. And if we get what we want we capture all the states.
Ganduje restate that Political parties in developing countries like Nigeria normally are active during the campaign but that is not how it should be. “So when we came in we said we must change the narratives.
“Our political Party – APC as an institution we wanted to be active through the year that is why we directed our offices, chapters at Ward level to ensure that all our offices are renovated, they become habitable and also they become operational.”
That is only possible when they create activities that will be taking place at the party offices right from Ward level to the Local Government level down to the state level.
“we always encourage internal democracy so that we reduce tension, factionalisation of the Party. Even though you have to get incidences here and there but equally the same, when we have internal democracy you will find out that there is more understanding and there is more hope especially when you are facing an election.”
“It is very important to have a connection between those in office and those who are handling the affairs of the party. That is if you are talking of the governors, they have a close relationship between them and the party’s structure in the state level and the same thing at the national level.”
“So we normally invite our officials from the state level and give them some information, educate them on issues like internal democracy.”
Also the issue of having an intellectual wing for the party, we establish what we called the progressives institute. It is to analyse national issues so that they can get the attention of the government to become an agenda for the government.