By Edozie Obasi-Eze
State Governors elected under the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), under the umbrella of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), on Sunday averred that the February date set for the conduct of the party’s National Convention is not negotiable.
Chairman, Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, made the declaration in Abuja, after their meeting, during which they passed a vote of confidence on the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
Bagudu said, “We are one group of stakeholders in the party and our party respects institutions. The appropriate organ of the party to announce the date is the National Caretaker Committee.
“We have agreed and they will announce a date in February but the announcement comes from the party. It is the party’s decision. There are other stakeholders that they are consulting and to show respect and institutional limit, we are not going to over step our bound. However, February is sacrosanct.”
On his update on the meeting, the Kebbi Governor, pointed out that “The PGF met on Sunday, January 16, 2022 to discuss numerous issues affecting the Forum and members’ states and we acknowledged some of the achievements the different member states made.
“The President visited Ogun where he commended and inaugurated projects, he visited Borno State. We have had challenges in some states and we commiserated with them. We spoke about our unanimous appreciation of Mr. President and especially the confidence he has in the Forum.
“We also passed a vote of confidence on the National Caretaker Committee of our party chaired by Governor Mala Buni and including two other Governors, Abubakar Bello of Niger State and Gboyega Oyetola of Osun State who have done an incredible job of running our party successfully, mobilising people into the party and we are very happy with their conduct.
“We discussed our upcoming convention which you may recall I had cause to address the media after we visited Mr President in November, 2021 where we expressed that both Mr. President and the party have agreed that the convention will take place in February.
“So, we took inputs about the reviews and we noted that all the misrepresentations in the media that we seek to correct; that the Progressive Governors Forum is a one united body as you can see evidently in attendance and our decision is unanimous.
“We are united behind Mr. President and we thank him and we are united and solidly behind the Caretaker Committee,” he noted.
