- Say States working with FG to roll out subsidy palliatives
By Chesa Chesa
Governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have commended the erstwhile chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, and National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, for having the wisdom to resign from their positions earlier in the week.
Adamu and Omisore had reluctantly turned in their resignations at the weekend ahead of the meeting of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) following Adamu’s repeated disagreements with positions of the presidency on nominations and appointments of principal officers of 10th National Assembly.
The face-off culminated in core loyalists of President Bola Tinubu moving surreptitiously to ease Adamu and Omisore out of the party leadership, with tacit endorsement of the President.
The APC Governors, who met Wednesday night under the aegis of the Progressive Governors Forum, at the Imo Governors Lodge in Abuja, welcomed the resignations and declared that, nonetheless, there is no crisis in the party.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, on behalf of the Governors, Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, said: “You must have heard of the resignation of the National Chairman of our party and the National Secretary of the party. Those are voluntary actions that have been taken and with due respect to our National Chairman, our Secretary.
“We commended the wisdom in what they have done and they served us well in the party. We are happy with their services and the party is united, there is no crisis in the party.
“They are happy; we also are happy. So, we are in support of their actions and they would continue to be commended and be respected and recognised for the services they have rendered to our great party.
“There resignations have also been accepted by the leadership of the party. There is an acting chairman now and there is acting Secretary.”
He stressed that the positions vacated by Adamu and Omisore have been filled by other national officers from their geopolitics zones as required by the laws guiding the party.
“The constitution of the party says in the absence of substantive National Chairman, the Deputy National Chairman from the same zone where the National Chairman comes from would take over; and the Deputy National Secretary would also take over and that was what has happened in our great party and we are happy with it”, Uzodimma pointed out.
The Governor revealed that the meeting also discussed national issues, especially the roll-out of palliatives for poor Nigerians following the removal of petrol subsidy.
He noted that the subsidy removal has meant extra money for State Governments to share from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), and that they are liaising with the Federal Government to ensure the extra funds are used in a way to ensure that more Nigerians are happy.
His words: “We are aware that the result of the removal of fuel subsidy will increase the volume of money that would be received by us during the Federation Account Allocation Committee meeting and we are working with Federal Government to ensure that the process of that FAAC will be utilised in a manner that the citizens of the country are happy, Labour is happy, we also are happy.
“Also, the economy of the country will be protected, our economic managers supported to ensure that our solvency margin is not tempered with in the International market. Instead, it will be improved upon. So, what has happened is something that we should be happy about.
“The current hardship occasioned by the price increase on both food, petroleum products and cost of living is being addressed. The subnational governments are working with the Federal Government and tomorrow (Thursday) there will be National Economic Council meeting to discuss further on that.”
