Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet
USAfrica: Peter Obi’s candidacy generates crisis for APC as Ngige refuses to endorse Tinubu
Nigeria’s ruling political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) I speak him and broiled in another crisis. This is following the refusal of one of the leaders of the political party, the minister of labour and employment, Dr Chris Ngige to support the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The deputy national publicity secretary of the party, Murtala Ajaka, has asked the minister to resign, following comments made by Ngige on Politics Today, a programme of Channels Television.
When asked who would get his support; Tinubu or back Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party, Ngige described the question as difficult.
He added: “Both of them are my friends. My choice will be in the ballot box. Whether conscience or no conscience, on that day in February, I’ll have one vote.”
In his written response Ajaka argued that: “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 enthronement 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 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. With this type of public comment 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?”
