Tinubu, Oshiomhole Sidelined As CPC Power Bloc Takes Over APC Structures Nationwide Ahead 2023 Polls

A report by ThisDay indicates that a new power bloc has emerged in the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

According to the report, the recent dissolution of states’executive structures of the ruling party seemed like a hijack of the party structures and an indication that the battle for the 2023 elections would be stormy.

The report stated that the dissolved executive committees had their allegiance to the sacked APC national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and his dissolved National Working Committee (NWC).

To that extent, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has also been sidelined with Comrade Adams Oshiomhole being his key ally.

Even with the title ”national leader,” Asiwaju Tinubu is not a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC), where high-wire politics is played and decisions are taken.

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Therefore, to dissolve the former executive committees was to sweep off the remaining part of the old structure.This will enable the enthroning of a new order.

APC as an association of some legacy political parties, including the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN),and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) seems to be one-sided at the moment.

In the ensuing political power struggle, the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) seemed to have outsmarted other members of the legacy parties.

There is also the new PDP members in the APC who defected from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC in 2014, but only the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi is the notable member of the group remaining in the APC as the rest have since gone back to the PDP.

They include former Senate president; Bukola Saraki, former vice president; Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and Sokoto state governor, Aminu Tambuwal.

To achieve their aim, the CPC bloc planned the emergency NEC meeting to exclude the national caucus of the party.

Asiwaju Tinubu and his loyalists like Chief Bisi Akande are members of caucus.

In another report, a group, North Central Peoples Forum (NCPF) have urged other geo-political zones in the country to concede the presidency to the north-central region in 2023, The Nationreports.

The group said the north-central was yet to have a shot at the presidency under a democratic setting, saying it is enough reason for the rest of Nigeria to consider the region in 2023.

Addressing reporters in Ilorin, Kwara state on Saturday, December 12, the secretary-general of the NCPF, Khaleel Bolaji, said:

”All the remaining five (5) zones in the country have produced the president of the country while the north-central is yet to have a shot at it under a democratic setting.

”Our votes in the north-central are more than the southwest votes. But because the southwest has the press to make the noise, it always gets its way. If politics is about the number, then we should be placed properly.”

In a related development, the agitation among the leaders of the All Progressives Congressive (APC) on which region should produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor may be put to rest next year.

Credible sources in the ruling party say the APC would take the important decision on where its 2023 presidential candidate would come from in June 2021.

It was gathered that if the north gets the slot of the national chairman of the party during the national convention of the party, the presidential candidate of the party would come from the south and vice versa.

Meanwhile, as the debate on which zone to produce Buhari’s successor in 2023 heats up, the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, has advised the people of the southeast to play good politics if they truly want to get the ultimate office in the country.

The presidential aide made this known on Friday, December 11, in an article titled, Dave Umahi’s Heart of Lion.

Adesina said the Ebonyi state governor, Dave Umahi, has the capability to contest for president in the 2023 elections.