Perish the Thought! Yahaya Bello Can’t Succeed Ganduje-APC Tells Promoters of ex-Kogi Gov

By Damola Emmanuel 

Barely four days after his tenure as Governor of Kogi State became history, Alhaji Yahaya Bello is in the eye of a storm.

Twenty-four hours after he left office, his posters started flying in Abuja promoting him to succeed the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje. And the promoters have been vociferous; unrelenting.

But the ruling party has effectively taken the wind off their sail. On  Tuesday, the party’s National Secretariat effectively debunked the scheme, categorically declaring that there was no vacancy in the office of the national chairman and there was no shaking for Ganduje.

Matter of fact, the APC effectively ruled out the prospect of the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, becoming the national chairman of the party.

Felix Morka, APC National Publicity Secretary, told reporters at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja that those behind the clamour for Bello to unseat Ganduje were in a trance and the earlier they woke up from their bad dream, the better for them. Specifically, Morka told the promoters to retrace their steps and perish the thought.

Morka said: “There is no vacancy in the office of the national chairman of the party,” Barrister Morka declared. “Our National Chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, is our chairman and he is operating as the chairman. So, there is no vacancy in that office. Yes, we have also seen some of those posters. This is democracy. People do what they want. But, make no mistakes; the office of the National Chairman is properly and fully occupied.

“We have absolute confidence in his leadership of the party. Nobody is asking for that office to be declared vacant and it is not vacant. I want to warn those throwing these papers around to desist from doing that.”

Apart from the pernicious campaign, Felix Morka, who spoke at the end of the weekly meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, also disclosed that the party will soon flag off the updating of voters register in Niger State, and thereafter, and cover one state in each of the other geo-political zones.

He denounced the refusal of the Speaker of Plateau Assembly to swear in 16 APC members adjudged by the Court of Appeal as duly elected.

However, the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, has denied any move to unseat the APC Chairman. This is according to a statement issued yesterday by his media office.

In the statement, Bello rubbished the allegation, insisting that its masterminds were hellbent on causing confusion in the party’s hierarchy.

Recall that there were viral reports, on Monday, of the emergence of posters promoting Yahaya Bello for the position of APC chairman in strategic places in Abuja, major streets in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), especially around the Federal Secretariat and on walls and fences of structures around the APC secretariat along Blantyre Street, Wuse 2.

The posters surfaced 48 hours after Bello, 48, left office as Kogi governor with the inscription. They bear inscriptions such as: “APC Next Level. Alhaji Yahaya Bello as APC National Chairman. Leading the Change, Building a Stronger APC.”

But distancing himself from the posters, Yahaya Bello described the development as the handiwork of “some opposition leaders and some fifth columnists within the party”.

He then urged members of the public to disregard the posters, describing it as a mischief by some people to create a false impression and confusion.