By Omeiza Ajayi
National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has spoken on the silence of some presidential aspirants who lost out in the June 8 special presidential convention of the party, saying while they remained members of the party, he could not assess the level of their commitment to Bola Tinubu’s presidential project.
Although Tinubu had won the ticket of the party during the convention, some of his rivals, such as Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and former Transportation Minister, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, have however not shown public commitment to the party’s bid to retain power at the centre.
While Osinbajo was excluded from the APC Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, both Lawan and Amaechi were named as advisers.
The development came as Adamu recalled with displeasure, the state of affairs of the party when he assumed the reins of office in March this year.
At a media parley in Abuja yesterday, Adamu defended his decision to reorganize the party bureaucracy, saying he inherited a very disorganized workforce and a secretariat “where anything goes and everyone was just doing his own thing”.
Party insiders said his comments could be seen as a subtle dig at the defunct Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee CECPC which steered the affairs of the party for almost two years before being forced out during a special elective national convention in March.
Adamu said he inherited billions of Naira in debts from his predecessor.
On Osinbajo, Lawan and Amaechi, the APC national chairman said: “To the best of our knowledge, they are keying into this project.
”However, each of the aspirants at the convention is still alive and as journalists, you owe it a duty, having observed or having the state of mind that requires to know where they stand today.
”It will be a bit absurd for me to start talking for them on things you feel you have not seen or heard from them. As for reconciliation, it is still a work in progress and we have been doing it. ”We have been talking to them and these guys are still very much around the political space. You can ask them whatever your observations are”.
On the reorganization of the party’s workforce, Adamu said; “The fact of the matter is, go round the secretariat, there is no one person who has come here who is a member of my family – primary or secondary.
“When we came here, we came to reorganize and reposition the party. You don’t see the party in a state of mess and just because you want to be decent, because you don’t want to offend anybody, you allow the rot that you inherited to go on.
