2019: Adamawa APC dumps Atiku

Some All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders in Adamawa State, at the weekend, formerly endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari as their sole candidate in the contest for the party’s presidential ticket ahead of 2019.

Similarly, the APC in the state also called on the president to look into the report of the panel that investigated suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, with a view to reinstating him, so long as he was not found wanting.

The party’s decision to endorse President Buhari, the Daily Sun gathered, was at variance with the earlier position of Governor Jubrilla Bindow of the state who had, from day one, left no one in doubt that the state would back former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the 2019 contest.

Although the governor was not physically present at the said meeting where the motion for Buhari’s endorsement was moved, his deputy, Martin Babale and his Chief of Staff, Alhaji Abdulrahman Abba-Jimeta, were present.

But one of the Atiku’s aides, who do not want his name in print, told Daily Sun yesterday that what happened at the weekend does not in any way indicate that there was a crack in Bindow and Atiku’s relationship.

He said that “anybody is free to endorse whoever. We know those who are for us, and at the appropriate time they will show their faces. I am sure you don’t expect them to show their faces now, considering what followed Fayose’s declaration for the presidency, where his commissioners were picked up shortly after the event”.

The aide further said: “I am not aware of any crack. When the Waziri (Atiku) was hosted in Abuja recently by Adamawa indigenes resident in the FCT, the governor was there. When the time comes, you see for yourself”.

At the Adamawa stakeholders meeting, held on Saturday and which was attended by party elders, members of the national assembly and state Assembly, elected council chairmen and party executives from all levels in the state, the party passed a vote of confidence on President Buhari and Governor Bindow, urging them to go for another term in 2019.

The motion for the endorsement, Daily Sun further learnt, was moved by former Deputy Senate leader in the last administration, Jonathan Zwingina.

The stakeholders argued among other things that the success recorded so far in the fight against insurgency, corruption and infrastructural development at the state and national levels were laudable, and as such deserved to be sustained.

Addressing the gathering on behalf of the state government, the governor’s Chief of Staff, Abba-Jimeta said the state government was interested in seeing that President Buhari runs for a second term in office to fully deliver on his transformation programmes, adding that as far as Adamawa was concerned, “Buhari and Osinbajo are our candidates for 2019”.

He further said that “the standard practice worldwide is for a performing president to serve his two-term in office”.

On the suspended SGF, the Adamawa state government urged the president to look into the panel report and reinstate Lawal, if he was not found wanting, adding that” we are aware of desperate moves by some APC members in the state to create problem between the state government and the federal government just to score cheap point.

“The state APC government has been working in line with the party manifesto and has so far delivered in areas of infrastructure, healthcare, education and agriculture,” he added.

Prominent among the stakeholders who attended the meeting were: Sen. Binta Masi, Abdulrahman Shuaibu, member, House of Representatives and the state Assembly’s deputy speaker, Mr. Emmanuel Tsamdu, who spoke on behalf of Senators, House of Representatives members and Adamawa Assembly members.

He told the gathering that both the state and the federal lawmakers were at home with the resolutions at the stakeholders meeting and would work towards its actualisation.

- Sunnews