2023: APC approves Tinubu’s manifesto

The All Progressives Congress (APC), on Wednesday, reviewed and approved the draft manifesto of its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

Spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Festus Keyamo, disclosed this to journalists after a meeting of the council, the Progressive Governors’ Forum and the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling party in Abuja.

He said the draft manifesto was presented by Tinubu to the organs of the party and that it got 90 per cent pass from most of the people that attended the closed-door meeting.

Mr Keyamo also said a committee has been set up to reduce the document to a simple presentation that everyone, irrespective of educational background, could relate with.

He did not, however, disclose the date for the release of the manifesto. He said Mr Tinubu would be the one to release the manifesto.

“What we did today was to review the draft of our manifesto. Our candidate is not a candidate that operates on his own. He tries to carry everybody along. He presented a draft of the manifesto to all the stakeholders of the party. We looked at it. Almost all the stakeholders gave the draft a 90 per cent pass mark.

“We are not going to take away the thunder from our candidate. He is going to present the manifesto on a particular day, at a particular occasion.

“After that, a small committee has been set up to reduce the document to highlights— major highlights. We want to deliver and sell the manifesto to even market women, to the street traders in the most simple language. We don’t want to present a very complicated document they cannot understand,” he said.

Mr Keyamo also spoke on the delay of the commencement of the flag-off of the campaign of the party.

He said the commencement of the presidential campaign would be determined by the availability of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is the Chairman of the PCC. He said the president’s diary would be checked for the purpose.

He likened the APC campaign to the manoeuvring of a 50 tonnes trailer which cannot be compared to the campaigns of the other parties, which he said are like kick-and-start cars.

“Our campaign is like manoeuvring a 50 tonnes trailer into the highway. Once we hit the highway, we hit the highway. The president is the chairman of the campaign council.

“We are going to take his diary into consideration in picking the date. We have agreed on the region we are going to start from— but I am not going to say that now. We have agreed on all the issues. We just want to carry the leader of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari, along,” he said.

Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, was conspicuously missing at the meeting, though, the Deputy National Chairman, (North), Suleiman Kyari, and the Deputy National Chairman (South), Emma Eneukwu, were in attendance.

Explaining Mr Adamu’s absence, the spokesperson of the party, Felix Morka, said the national chairman informed the relevant persons that he was not going to be in attendance at the meeting.

“The National chairman was not missing, he was adequately represented by the deputy national chairman, North and the deputy national chairman, South and he was in touch with every stakeholder who was here. The candidate, he did inform them of his inability to be here, but he was effectively represented,” he said.

Mr Morka said the party is united and in sync to prosecute the 2023 campaigns.

PCC’s Director of New Media, Femi Fani-Kayode, while addressing journalists, also spoke on the allegation by a group that the ruling party is pressuring the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to drop the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the coming general elections.

Mr Fani-Kayode described the allegation as “nonsense”, and added that the ruling party is above board.

He said, “We are above board. We are serious about what we are trying to do. We are going to achieve our objective and we are going to win this election fair and square.”

Mr Fani-Kayode stated that the party is gradually coming together ahead of the commencement of the campaigns.