APC Convention To Hold In 2021, NEC Meeting Before Christmas

There were strong indications on Monday that the National Executive Committee of the All Progressives Congress would meet before Christmas.

The PUNCH gathered that because of the limited time at the disposal of the party’s National Convention Planning Committee, it would seek an extension of its tenure for six months during the meeting.

Sources in the party, who spoke to Punch correspondent, said it was becoming inperative that the national convention would hold in 2021.

It would be reecalled that the APC NEC at its meeting in the Presidential Villa on June 25, 2020, dissolved the Adams Oshiomhole National Working Committee and set up a panel headed by the Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni.

According to the decision reached at the NEC meeting and the constitution of the party, the Buni-led interim committee was given a six-month tenure within which it is expected to organise a national convention, where substantive leaders of the party will emerge.

But multiple sources within the party’s hierarchy, who spoke on condition of anonymity on Monday because they were not authorised to speak to the media on the issue, said it was now almost certain that “the convention can no longer hold this year.”

According to one of the sources, “The process of rebuilding anything takes time, efforts and patience. The wounds inflicted on cohesion within the party by Adams Oshiomhole are still fresh.

“You will agree with me that the National Caretaker Committee started the reconciliation process while preparing for the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states, respectively.

“With these elections over, they are just settling down to the real business of reconciling aggrieved party members and have just set in motion the machinery for the planned nationwide registration, update and revalidation of the party’s membership register.