Akande May Emerge APC Interim Chairman

As the nine-man committee of the yet-to-be-registered All Progressive Congress (APC) meets tomorrow in Abuja to decide who leads it, Chief Bisi Akande, the national chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), appears set to emerge as the interim national chairman, our investigations have revealed.

Other candidates for the office, it was learnt, may have conceded the position to the ACN national chairman, fuelling speculation that the eventual presidential flag-bearer of the party would likely emerge from the geopolitical north.

Chief Akande, a former governor of Osun State, was the national chairman of ACN from the inception of the party; he is also a loyalist of the party's national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

However, it was confirmed that the interim national officers that would emerge tomorrow including the chairman, secretary and treasurer would not be eligible to vie for the posts when the party holds its national convention.

The primary responsibility of these interim national officers, it was further learnt, includes serving as a liaison between the party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) until the party is formally registered as mandated by the Electoral Act 2011, as amended.

The leading opposition parties — the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) — have joined forces under the platform of the yet-to-be-registered APC with a view to forming government at the centre in 2015.

Last Thursday, six chieftains of the APC met at the Lagos Lodge, Abuja, where they asked the merger committee led by Chief Tom Ikimi to submit its reports to their respective political parties and give way to a nine-man panel that would continue from where they had stopped.

Those that were in attendance were General Muhammadu Buhari and Chief Tony Momoh of the CPC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande of ACN and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Dr Ogbonnaya Onu for the ANPP.