Following the failure of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to inaugurate its campaign council previously slated for today, the party’s former Interim Secretary Tijani Tumsah has disclosed that the campaign council has been composed and only awaits inauguration to start necessary campaigns.
According to the APC chieftain, he didn’t understand why the delay of the party to inaugurate its campaign council is of great concern and that without the council, the party has started campaigning and such was the “five million” solidarity walk in support of the presidential candidate of the party, Bola Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, in Lagos State.
It was gathered that Tumsah on a Channels TV programme said that many other things are happening without the campaign council, and when it is inaugurated things will fall in place and “we will go on to gather votes for 2023.”
The Coordinator for Tinubu-Shettimah Support Group, North East said even without the campaign council, the party is more serious and well put together than any other party in the arena right now, adding that “we are ready for Nigeria but we want to get every detail right.”
He noted that a lot of things happen in a party that can hinder events, but notwithstanding, the APC is more poised for political campaigns going forward.
Tumsah stated that “in a political party structure, every granular event has to be planned and every granular appointment has to be made appropriately without having discourse to what happens in other parties.”
Responding to Tinubu’s absence during the signing of the peace accord, he said in a political party, the presidential candidate is not the sole person responsible for leading the party, instead, all members of the party are responsible for pushing the party’s agenda forward, so whether the presidential candidate is there or not members push.
According to him the party is a grand organisation of individual people across the nation and the leadership of the party does not comprise only the presidential candidate, hence the ability to delegate is a good sign of leadership, “if the presidential candidate is not present in one event doesn’t mean he is absent in all events, and it shouldn’t be the basis to issues”
On that premise, Tumsah remarked that the presidential candidate will decide at which event he wants to be and those events he can appropriately be represented he will be.
Citing that there was a composite rally elsewhere when the Lagos rally was held yesterday, but it doesn’t mean the presidential candidate must be in both places at the same time, adding that there is a multiplicity of events and you don’t expect him to be everywhere.
But he, however, was quick to say he will be in all 36 states including the feral capital territory to campaign towards the general election since he campaigned in all states during the party’s primaries.
“The APC is an organised party with registered members that have leadership structure and able to carry on campaigns which are prepared for going,” he noted
Speaking about what the party has to offer Nigerians, he remarked that the manifesto and the programme of events that will unfold going towards the 2023 elections will indicate how the APC intends to make things better as a form of governance.
“Nigeria is a country that needs unified vision and this is translatable into the APC’s programme and I assure you that is what you will see,” Tumsah observed.
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The former interim secretary also stated that “he (Tinubu) has support in the North East and we say we have support too, and we have proven that we do have like you know it is at the end of the day you know who has and who hasn’t gotten support in a particular region, but in the North East, the APC is the most dominant party and that will be shown when the elections are over.”
Tumsah affirmed that the current situation in Nigeria is good and that the APC has been able to stop the slide from going further “and all we have is nowhere to go but up.”
In his response to the PDP presidential candidate’s spokesperson, who equated Tinubu to a drug baron, he said “that is not kind of him and that is the politics we need to start avoiding. If you don’t have any reason to call a presidential candidate such names, somebody who has been a governor, a senator and a leader of a party and you are blatantly calling him names. I think it is exceptionally rude and uncouth, he should get better perception and home training before he faces the public to start describing people.”