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By Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the national assembly have resolved to work towards the emergence of consensus candidates at the party’s national convention, scheduled for Saturday, March 26.
Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, led the APC caucus in the national assembly to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday.
Speaking with state house correspondents, Gbajabiamila described the meeting as productive, saying the purpose was to encourage all stakeholders to unite and have a peaceful and successful convention.
“Mr President invited the principal officers of the APC to hold today’s meeting with us. Mr President, emphasised the need for us, in the APC to be united, always act as a family, to ensure that we remain focused.
“We have the leadership of Nigeria today at the national level and of course, we have many states, about 22 states, under the leadership of the APC. That requires that APC, as a political party, remains very focused, energetic, and purposeful, as it has always been, and ensure that we maintain the trajectory of development for our country.
“Because that is the trust Nigerians gave us in 2015 and renewed that, in 2019.
“Mr President also emphasised the need for us to ensure that we have a successful convention on the 26th of this month, March. This convention, by way of emphasis, is a very important convention for us in the APC, and by the grace of God, through our processes and procedures, at different levels of the party, the convention would be a very successful and very peaceful one.
“We hope that we would have achieved so much consensus in selecting and electing the officers for this party so that when we go into the convention, most of the officers would be for affirmation or confirmation,” he said.
Asked if the party has agreed on a consensus candidate for the position of APC national chairman, Gbajabiamila expressed optimism that by Friday, all stakeholders would have reached a decision.
“The essence of this engagement is for the party to achieve consensus, and consensus is a process. It doesn’t just happen like that.
“So I believe that before we go into the convention square on Saturday, by the grace of God, we would have a lot of consensuses reached and maybe the sort of document that we call or refer to as unity list, that is bringing all the agreed positions where consensus have been achieved in the various sections or geopolitical zones of the country,” the Speaker added.
