APC: NEC Integrity Group emerges, pledges support for Buni’s Caretaker Committee

…As Galadima insists party needs wisdom, extreme care to remain intact till 2023

A new body, the Integrity Group has emerged from within the National Executive Council (NEC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

This is just the day after a former chieftain of the ruling party APC, Alhaji Buba Galadima predicted that different factions in the party may break into pieces if care is not taken

Names of members of the new Integrity Group executive and Board of Trustees (BoT) have consequently been forwarded to  the party’s Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee (CEONCPC).

In a letter dated July 1, 2020, a copy of which was made available to newsmen on Monday in Abuja, and jointly signed by Hon. Abubakar Sadiq Saadu, Chairman and David Okumba, Secretary, the APC NEC Integrity Group notified Gov. Mai Mala Buni, of the formation of the group and declared its support for the National Chairman of the APC Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee.

Describing the appointment of Mai Mala Buni as chairman of the Caretaker Committee as a  good decision by NEC, the group assured the Caretaker Committee of its readiness to work with the Committee in order to restore the party to its lost glory and restore former members back to the party.

“As NEC members, we are always ready and available for the Caretaker committee and shall support it in whichever way it requires in the cause of steering the party’s affairs,” the group said in the letter.

While commending President Muhammadu Buhari over the dissolution of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, the group expressed confidence that the current caretaker committee will engender genuine reconciliation and peace in the party.

Listed as executive members of the Integrity Group are: Hon. Abubakar Sadiq Saadu – North-East (Chairman), Dr. Mrs. Racheal Akpabio – South South (Deputy Chairman), David Okumgba – South South (Secretary), Abubakar A. Musa – North East (Asst. Secretary), Lawal Kolade – South West (Treasurer), Terver Aginde – North Central (Organisation/Mobilisation), Hon. Muhammed S. Ibrahim – North West (Publicity/Strategic Communication), Barr. Tanko Zakari – North Central (Legal Adviser), Muhammad Azare – North East (Welfare).

Others are; Nduka Anyanwu – South East (Auditor), Bolaji Repete Hafeez – South West (Dep. Publicity/Strategic Communications), Hon. Ihuoma Onyebuchukwu – South East (Deputy Treasurer), Abubakar Ajiya – North East (Coordinator), Abdulmunaf Muh’d – North West (Coordinator), John Uwaedu – South East (Coordinator), Adie Ferdinand Atsu – South South (Coordinator) and Jock Alamba – North Central (Coordinator)

The group also introduced as Board of Trustees (BoT) member: Alhaji Nasiru Danu – North-west (Chairman), Sunday Jacob C – South-East (Secretary), Chief Koteteh Ibadan – South South (Member), Alh. Zakari Muhammad – North-Central (Member) and Alh. Shuaibu Abdulrahaman – North-East (member).

Meanwhile, Galadima had said that the APC needed wisdom and extreme care as the only two factors that can save the ruling party from blowing into pieces ahead of 2023.

According to him as it is now the party still remains divided into three major factions: Oshiomhole/Tinubu faction, El- Rufai/Amaechi/Badaru faction, and the presidency faction.

The former APC chieftain claimed the presidency faction also has subdivisions. “Unless there is wisdom, and perseverance is applied, they will never come together. Just like water and palm oil, they will never meet.

“It will be a fight-to-the-finish for the soul of the party because whosoever controls the executive would produce the presidential candidate of the party in 2023,” he said.

This is despite the reported claim by the national leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu, who declared that the ruling party has no crisis that will necessitate reconciliation.

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Tinubu said this after having a closed-door meeting with the chairman of the party’s caretaker committee, Governor Mala Buni, and other members in Lagos.

The former Lagos governor said “there is no crisis in the party, hence, no fight to reconcile.”

“We have no differences to be sorted out in the APC; we just had consultation and it is how our party, the APC, would continue to be a progressive party,” he said.