Moves to remove the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Abdullahi Adamu has been revealed as internal crisis continue to rock the ruling party.
Adamu who was handpicked by President Muhammadu Buhari emerged as a consensus candidate on March 26 and was subsequently named as national chairman of the party.
However, while there had been a build-up of complaints against Adamu, there were no attempts to oust him.
The former Peoples Democratic Party chieftain has been accused of trying to sabotage the party especially in the run up to the presidential primary where he attempted a coup by installing Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the pick of President Buhari.
Chronicle NG reports that there was an attempt by Adamu to nominate Lawan and Senator Godswill Akpabio as APC senatorial candidates to represent Yobe North and Akwa Ibom North West senatorial districts but he was blocked by INEC as both men didn’t participate in the primaries.
Over the weekend, new indications emerged that some APC stakeholders were working to get the party chairman out of the way as part of trouble-shooting efforts to placate the Christian bloc in the party.
An APC leader, who spoke to Vanguard in confidence, said the attempt was to balance power within the APC.
“Yes, there are those who feel that the controversy generated by our Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket can be lessened by having a Christian chairman and also proposing a Christian Chief of Staff to the President. Some have proposed a federal lawmaker, James Faleke, for that position, that is, Chief of Staff,” the party leader said.
Adding that, “There are issues regarding the continued stay of Adamu as party chair. The first is that we need to placate the Christian community.
“Second, a lot of us expected from Adamu in an election season but he hasn’t done much. We need the bureaucracy of the party to be alive this period, but their salaries are not even forthcoming and you expect them to work efficiently? That is one thing that might count against the chairman.
“Also, he was Chairman of the APC National Reconciliation Committee before he became the national chairman of the party. We expected that by now, he would have been able to resolve the major differences but that has not happened.
“The leader of our party, President Muhammadu Buhari also urged us to refund the money paid by aspirants at the convention which produced Adamu as national chairman. Aspirants paid millions, yet we haven’t refunded them. These are some of the issues.”
