APC Chair Aspirant Pledges Loyalty to Party’s Decision

Emma Okonji and Nosa Alekhuogie

Based on the decision by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to zone positions in the party to the North-central and South-west, a National Chairmanship Aspirant of the party, Muhammad Mustapha has said that even though the zoning does not favour him, he will remain loyal to the party.

Speaking yesterday on ARISE NEWS Channel, the broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspapers, Mustapha, however, noted that despite his loyalty, they weren’t treated fairly as he had invested heavily in campaigns throughout the country since last year.

According to him, he went on statewide campaigns in 25 states out of the 36 states in the country and it was the security challenge that hindered him from getting to other states.

“What we thought was that we were going to be carried along and consulted as aspirants to this exalted office in our party. Unfortunately, we were not consulted but a decision has been reached and as a loyal party man, I will remain loyal even in disloyalty.”

This means disloyalty to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because this is a God-given and constitutionally guaranteed rights for us to aspire to this office,” Mustapha said.

Speaking further, he stressed that what they were looking for was the party going ahead and being fair to them by micro-zoning the presidency for the sake of equity.

Mustapha said: “We want to believe that everything in this party has been agreed upon. What we are saying is, we, the younger Nigerians should be given the chance to lead these parties and the older ones should go for governance but up till now, I think it fell on deaf ears but regardless, we will stand by the decision even though it goes against democracy.”

Mustapha, who shared his thoughts on the zone the presidential candidate of the APC should emanate from, stated that although the decision will rest on the hierarchy of the party, he would always go by the agreements.

He said: “The leadership of the party and the presidency should be swapped. Those positions that were zoned to the north in the last eight years should be shifted to the south and vice versa. So we expect the same in the presidential arrangement, because now, the president is from the north, so we expect the party to be magnanimous even though it’s not provided in our constitution.”

He further stressed that the constitution of Nigeria has no provision for zoning of leadership in this country.

“The situation on ground has occurred in this country where there is no provision in the constitution and the National Assembly stepped in to avert crisis and brought in a solution to our national challenges, so this is not an exception. What we are saying is that some things are provided in the constitution but because of the situation on ground, even the constitution allows itself at times, a decision to be arrived at which is the doctrine of necessity,” Mustapha added.