APC asks Fashola, others to woo ‘rebel’ govs

Governor Babatunde Fashola

The leadership of the All Progressive Congress has directed its governors to enter into talks with their aggrieved counterparts in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

The 11 APC governors, including Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, it was gathered, had been asked to use their contact and speak with the governors on the possibility of defecting from their party.

Seven  PDP governors are at loggerheads  with the leadership of the PDP over the running of the party and other issues.

The  governors  walked out of the PDP mini-convention on August 31 in Abuja to form a faction of the party.

It is not clear if the APC governors have started carrying out the directive of the party’s leaders.

The Interim National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, confirmed this while speaking with journalists after the meeting of his party’s National Working Committee in Abuja in Thursday.

He said that since the party’s governors were members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, they were in the best position to woo their aggrieved counterparts from the ruling party.

He said such contact with the aggrieved governors was not discussed at their meeting and that it was not the duty of the NWC members to woo the aggrieved governors.

He said, “It isn’t a matter you discuss at executive meeting but I know that what the party resolved is that since our governors are also members of the NGF, and they also meet regularly with these other governors we have left that assignment in the hands of our governors.

“We have agreed that if and when the aggrieved governors of the PDP are desirous of making contact with the party they should do so through our governors.”

But when contacted, the National Publicity Secretary of the Bamanga Tukur faction of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, said that governors of the party would not join the APC.

He said that members of the ruling party would resolve their differences.

Metuh said, “There is no committed PDP member that will go the APC.  The PDP offered  platform for them to become governors.  They cannot abandon it. We may have our differences. That does not mean that they will cross over to the APC that its ideology is ethnic and religious based.”