After criticism, APC drops PDP’s Chimaroke Nnamani from campaign council

Chimaroke Nnamani, a former governor of Enugu, has been taken off the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council list.

The list was signed by Iyiola Omisore, national secretary of the party, and released on Wednesday.

Also Orji Uzor Kalu, a former governor of Abia and current chief whip of the senate, and Rauf Aregbesola, minister of interior, whose were on the previous list released by James Faleke, secretary of the campaign council, in September, were no longer in any department in particular.

But according to the list, all APC national assembly members and the federal executive council (FEC) are members of the presidential campaign council.

Nnamani’s inclusion in the previous list had elicited debate because he is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

But Bayo Onanuga, director of information in the campaign, had defended the decision to include the Enugu senator on the list.

“The PCC will also want to clarify that the appearance of the name of HE Chimaroke Nnamani, a distinguished senator from Enugu State, was not a mistake,” Onanuga had said.

“He is on the list in his own right as a supporter of our presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

On the part of Aregbesola, the interior minister and Bola Tinubu, standard bearer of the party, have been feuding for years.

The cracks in Aregbesola and Tinubu’s relationship became noticeable in May 2020, when Aregbesola revamped the ‘Mandate Group’ — a core of Tinubu’s loyalists.

The former Osun governor reportedly sanctioned the relaunch of the group without Tinubu’s approval, naming Abdullahi Enilolobo, his protege from Alimosho LGA, as the new leader, while he remained the grand patron of the group.

TheCable had also reported how their mutual friends and associates made an attempt to reconcile them in March.