APC fixes April 29 for national convention

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has said neither President Muhammadu Buhari’s health nor his absence was on the agenda of the party’s meeting with the APC governors on Thursday.
The party has also fixed April 29, as the date for its inaugural bi-annual non-elective convention.
This was made public by the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Abdulaziz Yari, who spoke to journalists after a three-hour meeting the governors had with the National Working Committee of the APC in Abuja.
He said, “We met with the leadership of our great party, the APC. We interacted and aligned our positions on the convention that is coming up on April 29.
“Like our chairman said, it is a mandatory non-elective convention. We have been meeting, we are going to be meeting regularly maybe quarterly  and when there is election, we will be meeting monthly.”
Governors who attended the meeting included Mohammed Abubakar (Bauchi); Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo); Tanko Al-Makura (Nasarawa); Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa); Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara); Simon Lalong (Plateau); Yahaya Bello (Kogi); Abdullahi Umar Ganduje (Kano); Godwin Obaseki (Edo); Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara); Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto); and Rochas Okorocha (Imo).
The governors of Lagos, Oyo and Niger states were represented by their deputies.  Odigie-Oyegun had in his opening remarks at the meeting said the absence of Buhari had not stopped governance because the President did the needful by handing over the reins of power to acting President Yemi Osinbanjo.
He described as worrisome the spate of negative media reports about the party. After accusing the media of trying to destabilise the polity, Odigie-Oyegun implored the party leaders present at the meeting to work towards “changing the narrative about the party.”
Odigie-Oyegun said, “What makes me happy in spite of these negative speculations and attempts to destabilise the polity is that, thanks to his respect for due process, the constitution of this nation has left a structure that is functioning very effectively. In spite of his unfortunate absence, one can say quite clearly that the wish of Mr. President is that the government will continue to function efficiently and effectively and that the party also should continue and proceed to execute its normal duties and functions.”
He added, “Today, the papers were replete with all manners of speculations which have become the pastime of the social media to carry all manners of fake and totally out of line speculations as to any step that we take on virtually any issue. I think this is something that we have to talk about later.
“It is important to say that our meeting today has absolutely nothing to do with the health status of the President.”