A former Governor of Abia State and Senate Chuef Whip, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu said the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, could not have acted on his own in the choice of Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, as the party’s consensus presidential candidate.
Kalu spoke in the wake of the controversy that greeted the announcement of Lawan as the consensus candidate of the APC by Adamu.
Asked if the decision was from the President, Kalu said, “The Chairman of the Party cannot be acting on his own, alone. That, you should know. He can never act on his own. The President (Buhari) is the leader of the party. What is wrong with that? Ahmad Lawan is a member of the party and he has served the party very well.”
He added, “If the Chairman of the party had said that, it is the choice of the party and the choice of the party is the choice of the President. He (Adamu) would come up with an official statement.”
Asked if it is in the place of the National Chairman to announce a consensus candidate for the primary election, Kalu simply said the Chairman of the party was the head of the party.
“All we are trying to say is that the party is supreme. Supremacy of the party lies in the hands of the National Chairman. It doesn’t lie outside the party. It’s inside the party,” he said.
Kalu, who made the assertion, while speaking on Politics Today on Channels TV on Monday, acknowledged that Abdullahi Adamu was an experienced and credible man.
While trying to shed light on the meeting that preceded the controversial announcement, he said, “They had NWC meeting and the NWC on their wisdom from the consultation that had been made selected Ahmed Lawan as a consensus candidate.”
He stated that people in the NWC (National Working Committee) of the APC confirmed the development to him.
Kalu did not agree that there was a disagreement in the meeting on the choice of Lawan, rather he said, “No No, one or two people out of 23 just said no, but the majority had their way.”
According to reports, there were attempts by the press to speak to Adamu at the APC secretariat in Abuja, but the Chairman would not speak as he angrily walked away and drove out of the secretariat.
Since he withdrew from the presidential race, Kalu has been rooting and rallying support for Lawan, whom he vouched, has the capacity to be the next president of the nation.
Recall Kalu, had on a national TV, said he would be willing to take a job of a sweeper in the Aso Villa, should the President of the Senate be elected Nigeria’s next President in 2023. (Vanguard report with some edits)
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