Alhaji Murtala Yakubu Ajaka, a member of the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) National Working Committee (NWC) and the party’s deputy national publicity secretary, has warned political appointees on the APC platform not to play hide-and-seek about their political standing. He says they should either publicly support Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s candidacy or immediately resign from their positions in the party-led administration.
The APC leader was responding to remarks made on a national television programme (Politics Today) on Friday evening by Senator Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labor and Employment, who declined to publicly declare his preference for Tinubu over Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) when the host asked him to do so.
Ngige claims that this issue is challenging to answer because Tinubu and Peter Obi are both close friends of his.
“My vote will be cast in the voting booth. I’ll decide what I want on the day of the election. I won’t reveal what I’ll be doing in secret to Nigerians.
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In a statement responding to Ngige’s remarks on Saturday, 09, 2022; the APC deputy spokesperson called such remarks from a minister in the ruling party’s government “uncalled for.”
Ajaka stated that Senator Ngige’s remarks on a national television programme were anti-party. He added that the party had chosen Senator Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as its presidential nominee and that all party leaders should put their personal ambitions on hold for the time being in order to deliver the party’s presidential ticket.
If this pattern among the appointees and party officials is allowed to continue, the APC rank and file could become enraged, claims Ajaka.
Ajaka questioned, “With this type of public comments from a sitting minister in a ruling party who cannot declare on national television his choice of presidential candidate, how on earth is the party expected to fare in the forthcoming presidential election? ” while urging President Muhammadu Buhari to summon his cabinet members to order and secure their commitments to deliver APC in 2023.
“It is expected of a serving Minister in an APC government to be a trusted apostle of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency in 2023, who along other party leaders laboured to ensure the enthroment of the same government in 2015 which they are now serving in.
“Chief Ngige and other APC appointees, especially in the federal cabinet should not forget in a hurry that they are holding onto the party’s mandate, hence the need to protect it with whatever it requires, but if they can no longer protect the interest of the APC in public and that of our presidential candidate (Tinubu), I think the honourable thing to do is to step aside from the government formed by the APC.”
