EXCLUSIVE: APC governors to meet on Tuesday as ‘zoning formula’ causes ripples

The 21 governors in the All Progressives Congress (APC) will meet in Abuja on Tuesday to discuss the party’s zoning formula ahead of the March 26 national convention, TheCable can report.

A list of all the party’s national positions along with the geo-political zones to fill them was widely published in the media, including TheCable, after the governors’ meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday.

However, some governors are said to be kicking against the list because it does not reflect the outcome of the meeting with the president.

“The only thing the president said at the meeting was that we should adopt the consensus method to pick the national chairman and that the position should go the north-central. That was all. Nobody discussed any other position,” a northern governor told TheCable.

“If you noticed, nobody signed the list that is going round in the media. It was not attributed to anybody. Governor Nasir el-Rufai said the north and the south would swap positions, but the list is not even reflective of this.

“Under a swap arrangement, the practice is north-east for south-east, north-west for south-west, and north-central for south-south, and vice-versa. That is the why the chairman will come from north-central since it was south-south the last time out. And that is the only thing we have agreed so far.

“If it is a swap, the national secretary should come from the south-east, not the south-west as the list suggests, because the previous national secretary was from the north-east.”

An APC senator also faulted the zonal congresses scheduled for March 12.

“Zonal congresses are alien to the current APC constitution. They are contained in the proposed amendment to our constitution, which can only be adopted at the March 26 convention after which it will become operational. Holding zonal congresses before the amended constitution is ratified amounts to illegality,” he told TheCable.

It is understood that this will also be discussed by the APC governors at their meeting.

The convention was initially scheduled for February 26 but shifted by a month.

Going by the timetable for the 2023 general election, parties are expected to pick their legislative, governorship and presidential candidates by June 3, 2022.