President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday night presided over the National Caucus meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the presidential villa, Abuja. National leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was absent at the meeting.
Tinubu had kicked against the tenure elongation of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC). But the caucus agreed to extend the tenure of the party executives. Also the National Executive Committee (NEC) ratified the tenure elongation.
Since then Tinubu, who heads the reconciliation committee set up by President Buhari, has been quiet. Also, the reconciliation moves have been slowed down. The meeting, which was a prelude to today’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party, had two main issues on its agenda.
The issues for consideration at the meeting included the party’s constitutional amendment and the report of the committee set up by the party on true federalism. Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State chaired the APC Committee on True Federalism. The committee submitted its report in October 2017.
The committee looked at 12 issues including merging of states, fiscal federalism and devolution of powers. The meeting was attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Bukola Saraki; the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha; state governors, members of the APC National Working Committee (NWC), and other party chieftains.
The meeting which kicked off at 8:20p.m. was still on-going as at 11p.m. Meanwhile, Governors elected on APC platform, members of its Board of Trustees and NWC members among others, are also expected attend the party’s NEC meeting today.
“It is going to be a routine NEC meeting which is afinal leg of the meeting that was held last month. “If you recall after the NEC meeting last, month, I told you that two issues were outstanding and that members asked for more time to study those issues.
“These are the issues of constitutional amendment and the True Federalism committee report. “These are the two key items on the agenda for NEC meeting,” Bolaji Abdullahi, the APC National Publicity Secretary told newsmen yesterday. It would be recalled that the APC NEC at its meeting of February 26, extended the tenure of the party`s NWC and other executive members across all levels by one year starting from June