Leadership
The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is under intense pressure to jettison micro-zoning of the national chairman position and allow all aspirants vie for the party’s top seat ahead of the February 26 national convention.
The insistence by some party big wigs to do away with micro-zoning of the chairmanship position, LEADERSHIP findings revealed, followed agitations from some national chairmanship aspirants in the race who are not ready to give up their ambition to pilot the affairs of the governing party.
The development, it was learnt, has put the party leadership under constraint to become more circumspect over the thorny issue of zoning of party offices.
With less than 27 days to the national convention, the party leadership is yet to officially announce the zone arrangement of offices along geo-political regions.
Instead, the Mai Mala Buni-led APC had on several occasions spurned reports that it has zoned the offices.
While all the aspirants in the contest are from the North at the moment, some of the zoning projections which have been refuted by the party however favours the North Central as the region to produce the national chairman.
A source who spoke with LEADERSHIP on condition of anonymity however said the party leadership had been elusive about taking a definite position on zoning because of the pressure from certain quarters to throw it open to all aspirants, especially those from the North. The source said the opposition to micro-zoning is led by a former governor from the North West zone who also enjoys the backing of some other party leaders from the zone.
The source said, “The agitation to throw the ticket open, especially to all regions in the North, is mounting. And it is gaining traction because some people want the North West to get the national chairmanship which they feel is quite influential rather than the vice presidential seat.”
LEADERSHIP gathered however that the APC leadership has implicitly zoned the national chairmanship to the North Central zone but is secretive about it in order not to ruffle feathers within the party.
It was learnt that currently, there are three names of aspirants from North Central before President Muhammadu Buhari, including former Nasarawa…
