All Progressives Congress, APC yesterday added to the woes of Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, when the opposition party gave him the consolatory job of a campaign manager.
Governor Amaechi had sacrificed a lot for the party with the expectation of being rewarded with the vice presidential candidate slot, but was dumped for former Lagos State Attorney-General, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, who the party’s presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, unveiled on Wednesday in Abuja as his running mate.
In a statement yesterday, APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, named Governor Amaechi, as the Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation.
Mohammed said the announcement followed the hugely successful convention at which Gen. Buhari was democratically elected, and the follow-up successful choice of his running mate, Prof. Osinbajo.
The party described the director-general position as “the most important task in the quest for positive change in Nigeria,” and said the Rivers governor was considered for the position because of his love for the country, principle, strength of character, decency and his administrative acumen.
It boasted that in the run-up to who would be Gen. Buhari’s running mate, the party had a plethora of credible candidates but went for a man it adjudged as having a greater pedigree.
Mohammed said: “With a presidential candidate that has rekindled the hopes of the citizenry and revived their belief in democratic ideals, we believe we must also choose a running mate that will complement the sterling qualities of the presidential candidate. We must confess that the choice was a tough one, considering the array of eminently-qualified and outstanding candidates that we had to choose from.
“Yes, we were spoilt for choice but, in the end, we picked as running mate, a man whose pedigree, nationally, sub-regionally, regionally and globally, attests to the fact that our party, the APC, is a repository of high quality leadership materials, and that our country, Nigeria, has no shortage of the very best human resources,” the party said.
Governor Amaechi was in the forefront of the campaign for Gen. Buhari’s emergence as the presidential candidate of the APC with the unwritten understanding that he would be compensated with the running mate slot. That was not to be as leaders of the party blocked every move made by the governors backing Amaechi for office. This did not go down well with some of his supporters, but there are indications that the dissatisfied governor might have been offered some juicy promises should APC win next year’s presidential election.
Nigerian Pilot learnt that it was on the strength of those promises that he accepted to work as the party’s presidential campaign organisation boss. But there are also fears that if the owners of the party renege on initial promise made to him, how feasible can this one be, even as Tinubu had already described him and other defected Peoples Democratic Party, PDP governors and members as strangers in the opposition party.
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