2023: Northern political leaders facilitate Ghali Na’abba return to APC, favoured ahead of El-Rufai

ABIODUN JIMOH

As part of the northern political leaders strategies to remain in power beyond 2023 unfolding, negotiation to ensure the quick return of former Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Ghali Umar Na’abba to All Progressives Congress (APC) has reached an advanced stage.

The former speaker, whose grand return to the ruling party is being fashioned out by the leaders having been considered to be a modest and dependable ally for 2023 presidential candidate ahead of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the Kaduna State governor, who was taunted too rigid and not marketable.

Daily Dispatch scooped that with this plan, Hon. Na’abba, who was the People’s Trust Party, Chairman of the Presidential Campaign Council for the February 16 election is anticipated to dump the party, and return to ruling party which he dumped in December 2018, prior to the election.

To give credence to his return, Na’aba on Thursday featuring on TV programme Sunrise Daily on Channels TV disclosed that yes he is in talk with APC and that negotiation is ongoing, and he may return to the party he left nine months ago very soon.

However, the recent body language of President Muhammadu Buhari actions over his vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, whose rising profile as the favourite for the party’s presidential candidate is worrisome.

The vice president, before the recent happening within the presidency has enjoyed tremendous support from the governors, especially from the north who gave their backings for Osinbajo and El-Rufai as candidates for the party.

Moreover, the unfolding character of the northern desperation to abort the rotation of power between the north and south as well as to prolong ruling the country is believed to be the driving force for quick return of Na’abba to APC.

According to a reliable source, it was gathered that the choice of Na’abba was reached in one their meetings held in Abuja, and that it comprised of northern political leaders irrespective of party affiliations just to ensure that the power remains in the north.

The source noted that it was at the meeting that decision to settle for Na’abba  as a formidable candidate for the presidential position was adhere to, this led to secret negotiation to facilitate his return to APC.

Furthermore, it was gathered that Mallam El-Rufai was rejected based on his fanaticism, whom they believed would be difficult to handle because of his noticeable acts recently.

Also, they remarked that Hon. Na’abba would be a credible candidate generally acceptable by Nigerians due to his antecedent as speaker and someone that can stand the test of time in the South-West rather than El-Rufai, who could jeopardize their intention.

It could be recalled that Hon. Na’abba, represented Kano Municipal Federal Constituency, Kano State under People Democratic Party (PDP), where he was elected House of Rep. Speaker between 1999 and 2003, but was not returned for the second tenure.

He later quit the party in 2005 to join Action Congress (AC) where he sojourned for two years before returning to PDP again in 2007. He later joined APC in the twilight of 2015 until December 2018, when he announced his resignation in a letter addressed to the APC Chairman of his Sharada Ward of Kano Municipal Local Government, thus pitched tent with Peoples Trust party.

Meanwhile, part of his letter of resignation read: “This is to notify you of my resolve to resign from the All Progressives Congress (APC), effective today 5th December 2018.

“My decision to resign from the party follows the cavalier manner in which both the Federal Government, States controlled by the APC and the APC itself are being run, as a result of which anybody who has eyes to see only sees doom and not prosperity for our dear country.

“My decision is based on the manner congresses and primary elections were conducted in the party. There is clearly no doubt in my mind, and the minds of visionary Nigerians that the APC administration is characterised by lack of consultation, crass incompetence, lack of vision, arrogance, and dangerous fixation.

“The defections in the National Assembly is a sign of the failure of the APC. It is a measure of the incompetence of the APC government that after all is said and done, it has lost a Senate President and a Speaker of the House Of Representatives and many others for reasons that border on meanness, lack of simple management skills and capacities and a great measure of arrogance.

“It is also a measure of the incompetence of the party that there is almost no state in the Federation where there is no conflict.

“While it is generally accepted that no human organisation can be rancour-free, it is disheartening that these conflicts in the party are inflicted by its leaders, some of whom can be said to be poorer in human qualities than the poorest of men…”