Buhari warned leaders and members of APC to desist from “name-calling and backstabbing”.
President Muhammadu Buhari has broken his silence over the crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress.
The simmering leadership crisis rocking the party had taken a different dimension on Monday in Abuja when governor of Niger State, Abubakar Bello, stormed the party’s national secretariat to assume chairmanship of the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee.
Bello, who arrived amid heightened security presence comprising about 70 security personnel with no less than 15 patrol vehicles, which barricaded access roads to the premises, said he had the blessing of Buhari.
However, the APC Senate caucus, on Wednesday in an emergency meeting insisted that Buni was still the CECPC chairman.
Senators at the meeting included Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, his deputy, Ovie Omo-Agege, Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, and other principal officers.
Reacting in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Garba Shehu, on Saturday, Buhari warned leaders and members of APC to desist from “name-calling and backstabbing”.
He reiterated that the party’s national convention would hold on March 26.
The statement also quoted Buhari as asking members of the party to “look at the once-powerful, main opposition Peoples Democratic Party now enfeebled and adrift and learn lessons in disunity, mismanagement and corruption”.
He said, “They (PDP) failed in 16 years in power and a failure as opposition.
“Yes, we are entitled to our own share of dissent and intra-party discord. These are common in all parties, left and right all over the world.
“But parties splintered by competing egos destine themselves to the worst possible fate.
“As the country prepares for the long run-up to the 2023 presidential election, we all expect a robust debate on the issues that matter and what is going in the APC should be a reflection of this, not the infighting we are seeing. There must be no more distractions ahead of the convention to choose new leaders.”