APC sets up 15-member committee for June 14 convention

By Umar Muhammad Puma

All Progressives Congress (APC), has set up a 15- member committee that will conduct its forthcoming National Convention scheduled to hold on the 13 and 14th June this year, in Abuja.

In a communique at the end of their National Executive Committee (NEC), meeting in Abuja, Interim National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the leadership have agreed that the National Convention of the Party will now hold in Abuja on the said date.

He added that the committee will be chaired by the Governor of Sokoto state, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamako, while Sen. Chris Ngige will serve as the Secretary.

Other members of the committee are Sen, JK Waku, Sen Hadi Sirika, Deputy Minority leader of the House of Representatives, Rep Abdulrahman Kawu Sulmaila, Ambassador Sule Buba, Garba Gadi, Sen Aisha Alhassan, Kola Shittu, Rotimi Fashakin, Sera Obishola, Dr. Ezekiel Ezeagu, and Julius Eheibere, among others.

The party however expressed concerns over what it called the insincerity of the Federal Government’s in the fight against the Boko Haram and search for the abducted girls.

“Up to this moment, the Federal Government has yet to reach out to the APC, the main opposition party, on how to forge a common front against this despicable terror group, despite our incessant efforts to reach out to the government.

“Nigerians will recall our various interventions in which we stated clearly that only a non-partisan approach could help extricate Nigeria from the death grip of Boko Haram; how we have consistently called on the government to organize a national stakeholders’ summit to put all hands on deck and how we have made a number of recommendations which we feel can help pep up the fight against the terror group.

“The only response we have received so far is that in which the government said it had implemented or it is implementing those recommendations anyway, in what clearly amounts to an unnecessary hubris and a cold shoulder.

“A party that controls the three hardest-hit states by the Boko Haram insurgency cannot be excluded from any serious efforts to tackle the insurgency.

“Interestingly, the federal government that has been clamouring for support in the anti-terrorism fight did not deem it fit to even reach out to the APC ahead of its announcement of its extension of the state of emergency in the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.