By joshua 
By Prince Sani Ogu Salisu
To start with, the ruling All Progressives Congress was born out of a merger of three main opposition parties and a faction of the defunct ruling People’s Democratic Party. The outright objective of the merger was to save Nigeria from what was internationally perceived as a movement to no direction.
From politics to governance, economy to trade and even the ruling party’s administration, bad governance, injustice and highhandedness were the others of the day. Like water and thirst, these excesses made the emergence of the APC akin to the only way out for Nigerians and so, Nigerians voted massively in one spirit for the APC to take over Nigeria’s central government in 2015. Between 2013 when the APC was formed to date, the party had five National Chairman out of which three emerged from national conventions.
As at the time of forming the party, distinguished Sen. Al-Makura was the only Governor of the CPC, one of the three prominent opposition parties that formed the merger. Beyond this, of the three party chairmen that the party has produced from a convention, the three other components of APC which are ACN, ANPP and PDP have all had a shot at the Chairmanship through former Governors John Oyegun, Adams Oshiomole, Governor Mai Mala Buni and Senator Abdullahi Adamu respectively except the CPC.
Also, the principle of justice and fairness which is a Principal character of our great party stands a serious threat if the party’s Chairmanship leaves the North Central as has been widely speculated. With blind attention to previous short-change of the North Central, while the mistakes of the past can be excused by time: it will be outrightly unjustifiable for the Party’s Chairmanship to be taken away from the North Central – looking at the current National arrangements.
If fairness should be our watchword as a party built on the principle of justice, the North Central having lost sway of all the four presiding officers of the National Assembly should ordinarily retain the party’s Chairmanship. Aside from the fact that the North Central is a very stronghold of the ruling All Progressives Congress, it remains the only Zone without a frontal role in governance.
As it stands, the President, Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Deputy Senate President, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives are from the Southwest, Northeast, South South, Northwest and Southeast respectively. What this means is that, apart from the SGF and the Party’s National Chairman that hails from the North Central, the zone seems to be clearly abandoned.
Whereas, the Party had zoned the National Organising Secretary to Northwest in the last convention with Alhaji Suleiman Argungu currently occupying the seat while the National Chairman was zoned to the North Central, it will be an outright breach of the existing zoning arrangement if a North Central state is not allowed to produce the party’s National Chairman as a replacement for distinguished Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
More so that the North West currently occupies the position of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives and the Deputy Senate President in addition to the party’s organising secretary, the most equitable thing to do is to let North Central produce the next National Chairman of the party. And in doing this, the zone having previously micro zoned the said office to Nasarawa State during the last convention, the right thing to do is to let the most prominent aspirant, in person of distinguished Senator Tanko Al-Makura actualize his dream.
Equity, it is said, not to be the presence of equality but the entrenchment of justice in absolute fairness. The choice is now entirely ours to either make or mar history from the turn of events in our great party.
~Prince Sani Ogu Salisu is the Kogi State Immediate Past Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development