December 19, (THEWILL) – As the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is getting set for its national convention, scheduled for February 2022, aspirants for the party’s topmost position, the national chairmanship, have started intensive lobbying of members of the party across the country.
The convention will produce the new executive of the party, who will replace the Caretaker and Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee (CENCPC), which took over the running of the party following the sack of the Adams Oshiomhole–led National Working Committee (NWC) in June 2020.
Although the party is yet to announce its zoning policy, it is believed that its next presidential candidate will come from the southern part of the country. Aspirants who have indicated interest through their body language and open declaration for the chairmanship position are from the northern part of the country. Most of them are from the North-Central states of Nasarawa, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Benue and Kogi.
The leading contenders among the aspirants include Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, former Nasarawa State governors, Tanko Al-Makura and Abdullahi Adamu, former Benue State Governor, GeorgeAkume, Senator Sani Musa from Niger State and Alhaji Saliu Mustapha from Kwara State.
Ali Modu Sheriff
Sheriff is a two-term governor of Borno State and the first to serve two consecutive terms (2003–2011). He had held two elected offices as a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). He later joined the All Progressive Congress (APC) becoming a founding member of the party. In 2014, Sheriff defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and acted as the National Chairman. He was succeeded by Senator Ahmed Makarfi. On April 26, 2018 he returned to the APC.
Ali Modu Sheriff was born in Ngala Town, Ngala Local
Government Area of Borno State in 1956. His father was the business tycoon, Galadima Modu Sheriff. He was elected as a senator from Borno during the Third Republic under the banner of the National Republican Convention.
Mohammed Danjuma Goje
Born in 1952, Goje is a former Governor of Gombe
State under the platform of the PDP. He was born in Pindiga, Akko, Gombe State. He studied Political Science and graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU) Zaria. He was a member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly from 1979 to 1983. Goje became the Secretary of the National Institute For Medical Research in Yaba, Lagos State in 1984
Goje is also a former Minister of State for Steel Development and he is currently involved in a running battle with Governor Yahaya Inuwa, who is seeking a second term.
Saliu Mustapha
Saliu Mustapha was the National Deputy Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the defunct political parties that merged to form the APC.
Mustapha was born on September 25, 1972 in Ilorin, Kwara State. He studied mineral resources engineering at the Kaduna Polytechnic. His political career started in the early 21st Century when he became the first national publicity secretary of the Progressive Action Congress (PAC). He became a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and was devoted to the presidential ambition of Muhammadu Buhari. In 2009, when a breakaway faction of the ANPP led by Muhammadu Buhari founded the CPC, Mustapha became the national deputy chairman of the party. He held this position until the party merged and formed the APC.
He has distinguished himself in business, politics and humanitarian services. He founded the Saliu Mustapha Foundation to serve as a platform for human empowerment and community development.
Abdullahi Adamu
Adamu, former governor of Nasarawa State, is currently a senator representing Nasarawa West in the upper chamber of the National Assembly. Born on July 23, 1946 in Keffi, Nasarawa State, he attended Government Secondary School, Makurdi between 1960 and 1962, Government Technical College, Bukuru (1962–1965) and Kaduna Polytechnic (1965–1968). He returned to Kaduna Polytechnic for a Higher National Diploma in June 1971.
Adamu started work in 1967 with the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria. In 1971, he joined the Northern Nigeria Development Corporation (NNDC) Kaduna. In 1973, he joined AEK, a consultancy firm, where he was Project Manager for construction of Durbar Hotel and Murtala Mohammed Square, Kaduna.
In October 1975, he was appointed Executive Secretary of Benue/Plateau Construction Company by the old Benue-Plateau State Government. Between February 1980 and September 1983, he was Chairman of the Benue Cement Company, Gboko.
In 1987, he enrolled in a part-time degree programme at the University of Lagos, obtaining an LLB (Hons) in 1992. He enrolled in the Nigerian Law School, Lagos where he obtained his BL and was called to the Bar as a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in December 1993.
In 2007, he was a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He is currently leading a peace effort in the APC. He is also a former minister.
Tanko Al-Makura
Al-Makura was born in Lafia, Nasarawa State. He has publicly declared his intention to occupy the national chairmanship position of the APC. He described himself as eminently qualified, promising, if elected as chairman, to lead the party to victory in the 2023 presidential election.
Al-Makura, who was a chieftain of the defunct CPC, is believed to be a strong contender. He is close to President Muhammadu Buhari. In 1980, he became the youth leader of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the old Plateau State. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly of 1988, representing the Lafia–Obi Federal Constituency of what is now Nasarawa State. He was state secretary of the National Republican Convention( NRC) in Plateau State from 1990 to 1992.
Al-Makura was a founding member of the PDP in Nasarawa State in 1998. He left the party after losing the primaries for a governorship election in the state and was eventually elected governor on April 26 2011 on the CPC’s ticket after defeating the incumbent g, Aliyu Akwe-Doma of the PDP.
Mohammed Sani-Musa
Mohammed Sani Musa, currently representing Niger East in the Senate, was born on May 11, 1965 in Minna, Niger State. On February 7, 2019, the Federal High Court, Abuja, declared him as the Niger East Senatorial district candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 23, 2019 election, agreeing that Musa was the declared winner of the primary election the APC conducted in the senatorial district on October 2, 2018.
On February 23, 2019 Niger East Senatorial district election, Musa won with 229,415 votes, ahead of the candidate of the PDP candidate, Ibrahim Ishaku, who got 116,143 votes.
On June 14, 2019, the Nigerian Supreme Court in Abuja declared him the winner of the last Senate election held in the Niger-East Senatorial District of Niger State, setting aside the judgement of the Court of Appeal, Abuja.
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
