By Joy Odor
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has warned the Northern leaders to stay clear from 2027 presidency position, saying it still belongs to President Bola Tinubu from the South.
According to him, after 2027, it would be the turn of the North, affirming Tinubu for the second term.
Dr Ganjude gave the warning at the APC National Secretariat when he received the leaders and members of Tinubu Northern Youth Forum, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Media Centre (PBAT Media Centre), Tinubu Northern Youth Forum (TNYF) among others who are very active to promote the renewed hope agenda of President Tinubu.
“When a leader from the northern part of this country was in office for 8 years, we advocated that the next president in our party should come from the south.
“And luckily enough, we worked very hard with the cooperation of Nigerians. Our president has come from the South and is going to Inshallah go for the second term in 2027. And then after that, it will be turned to the northern part of this country.
“I believe we are on the right course and we encourage you to continue working on that. We will study your documents and we shall see areas of cooperation. Thank you and God bless.
“There is no doubt we are blessed with the youth forum this morning. First we were visited by the Tinubu Young Generation Forum, who are very active in order to promote the renewed hope agenda of our president, of our party, and now we are having another youth forum, Tinubu Northern Youth Forum.
“This forum, I have already assessed you. This is an active and focused youth forum, because I’m highly impressed with the data that you presented to me.
“This shows that you are not beating about the bush. You know precisely where you are going, you have articulated your agenda, you fished for useful election data. I’m highly impressed with that.
“So APC is ready to provide you with all the assistance that you need. I have even seen that you are assisting the government in public enlightenment for people to understand the tax reform agenda. This tax reform, initially it was misunderstood, but in the course of time there was a lot of public engagement.
“I think people have come to understand the whole purpose of the tax reform. And we are happy that members of the National Assembly are too, they are now fully conversant with the policy and they are ready to do the needful. So we thank you.
“If support organizations like you, whenever there is an agenda by the federal government, if such support groups will come to assist, then it will form public enlightenment and inclusiveness in the running of the government. So we thank you. We have seen your plan in order to mobilize voters in respect of the 2027 election.
“This is very, very encouraging. I have to congratulate you for this. And also, you know, our president is for the north, our president is for the south, our president is for the six geopolitical zones.
“And we have been receiving support groups from all the six geopolitical zones. And we are happy that our party believes in zoning.
“First of all, we are very grateful for finding it important to pay this courtesy call to re-present yourself because earlier on you presented yourself when I was appointed as one of the patrons of this great organization.
“There is no doubt this is a support group organization of which during the electioneering campaign we have thousands of support groups.
“But now we have only a few who are consistent, who have increased their tempo despite what they did for us during the election.
“Now they have developed new blueprints in order to sustain the activities of the group, especially you being a younger generation, you are dealing with young people, men and women.
“So we are highly impressed with your activities and we believe that is what it should be.
“This Young Generation Forum, I assure you, the way you are moving, you really create a niche for yourself. You create an identity for yourself and I believe you emerge as a national outfit. Thank you.
“Our president is doing very well. He is a reformer, he is a visionary leader, he is focused and we are happy with his reforms because his reforms are absolutely necessary for the social economic development of this country.
“There is no doubt so many things went wrong over a long period of time and it would require, there is no doubt it requires surgery before we can get it right.
“But we are happy that we have started seeing the outcome of the reforms, especially in the economic side and we believe this will continue to yield positive results so that the legacy and the renewed hope agenda will be achieved.
“So we have to thank you for also giving us a congratulatory message, congratulating me for my new appointment as Chairman of FAN and this is great. You have taken me by surprise.
“I didn’t know that you are even conscious of the appointment. So we are grateful for that. I assure you we will continue to support you in all your activities.
“FEC, as we said, is not a business as usual. We want to be active throughout the year, not necessarily during elections. We are very active now in all our branches.
“Even today we have a meeting with the Chairman of state branches and we assure them that we will be attending their programs at the state level so that we keep activities alive.
“Also we have established what we call a Progressive Institute that will be able to educate our members, public enlightenment, educate them on our constitution, on our manifesto, on our programs, and also the institution will be able to provide inputs for the government to take necessary policies for the development of this country. So you can see that, as we said, business is not as usual.
“We are up and doing to make a political party as an institution, an institution that is responsible for registration of membership, for recruiting people for elected offices, recruiting people for appointed offices, and at the same time to assist the government in power so that we can achieve our manifesto.
“So by this we are on activities of this Young Regeneration Forum. I think you are adding color to our own activities as a party.
