Barring any unforeseen occurrences, the National Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande seems set to be named the interim National Chairman of the yet-t0-be-registered All Progressives’ Congress (APC) as its nine-man interim committee meets tomorrow.
According to informed sources, other candidates for the office may have conceded to the office to the ACN chairman, which means that the party’s presidential candidate in 2015 would definitely come from the North.
Chief Akande, who was a former governor of Osun State on the Alliance for Democracy from 1999 to 2003, has been the national chairman of ACN from the inception of the party; he is also a loyalist of the party’s national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
However, it was confirmed that the interim national officers that would emerge tomorrow including the chairman, secretary and treasurer would not be eligible to vie for the posts when the party holds its national convention.
The primary responsibility of these interim national officers, it was further learnt, includes serving as a liaison between the party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) until the party is formally registered as mandated by the Electoral Act 2011, as amended.
The leading opposition parties — the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) — have joined forces under the platform of the yet-to-be-registered APC with a view to forming government at the centre in 2015.
Last Thursday, six chieftains of the APC met at the Lagos Lodge, Abuja, where they asked the merger committee led by Chief Tom Ikimi to submit its reports to their respective political parties and give way to a nine-man panel that would continue from where they had stopped.
Those that were in attendance were General Muhammadu Buhari and Chief Tony Momoh of the CPC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akandeof ACN and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Dr Ogbonnaya Onu for the ANPP.