Governors in the All Progressives Congress (APC) controlled states have strenghtened their grips of party structures with their candidates winning key positions in states  where the congresses of the party have been concluded.

Former governors who are members of the party have also managed to keep their firm hold of the machinery of the party with their candidates clinching key positions.

Interim national secretary of the APC, Tijani Musa Tumsa,  confirmed to Daily Trust that 20 states have concluded their state congresses.

The congresses which started from the ward level to the local government levels and culminated in state congresses, based on observations by our correspondents, have in most states witnessed a tussle between the blocs represented by the legacy parties and other interests that cropped up after the formation of the party.

The bloc of the legacy parties the governors belonged to, won in states where the APC is in power. In states like Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, and Edo, former Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) stalwarts won, while in states like Zamfara, and Yobe, stalwarts of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) won while in Nasarawa, the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) stalwarts won. 

The congress in Imo, where the governor, Rochas Okorocha, was said to have imposed a candidate, was cancelled, while in states like Gombe, the emerging interests wanting to control the party slugged it out. 

In Adamawa, the camp of Governor Murtala Nyako was said to have had an upper hand in the congresses as in most local governments, candidates of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and those of the legacy parties were roundly defeated.

 Atiku reportedly met Nyako this week  to  discuss the matter with a view to allowing his supporters into some positions.  Most of the petitioners  challenging the congresses came from the Atiku-led camp.      

In Kwara, the Bukola Saraki controlled interim executives that moved from the PDP merely transmuted into the new leadership with former state chairman of the PDP, Ishola Balogun-Fulani, who defected to the APC with Saraki, emerging as chairman.

The Lagos State chapter of the APC, on its part, elected 35 new executive members in which the erstwhile interim state chairman, Chief Henry Ajomale, was returned as chairman. 

Ajomale alongside 34 other new executive members of the party were elected  through an affirmative voice-votes from the 2,105 accredited delegates for the party’s congress from the 20 local government areas, and 37 local council development areas in the state.

Out of the 35 new executives, only four were members of the defunct ANPP and CPC giving the defunct ACN members the upper hand in forming the party’s executive in the state.

In Nasarwa, the CPC bloc, which Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura belongs to, stole the show.

The CPC camp has people like retired General Abdullahi Aboki who is the national vice chairman in charge of North-Central, and Dr. Hassan Lawal, a former minister, as well as some candidates of the CPC in the 2011 elections.

Also, in much of the wards and local government areas, former CPC members emerged winners, giving the indication that the planned state congress will follow the same pattern. 

There are also the blocs formed by individual party leaders, especially in Keffi, where Senator Abdullahi Adamu (APC, Nasarawa-West), Dr. Lawal and General Aboki are in constant struggle to dominate. 

The wards and local government congresses did not hold in Keffi because of the clash of interests of the three men, who insisted on deciding the exercise through a consensus arrangement. 

State party secretary, Barrister Mustapha Galadima, declined to comment on the problem in Keffi, although he did not deny that the congresses did not take place there.

In Kaduna, the results of the ward congresses in all the local governments have not been announced almost two weeks after the exercise. A party source said the inability to announce the results was due to cancellation of the congresses in some wards, following the eruption of violence.  He said: “There will be re-run in about 50 wards where the exercise could not hold due to violence, thereafter the results will be announced. And the local government elections and state elections for party officials will be held.”

The source, however, said reports obtained from wards where the congresses took place indicated that candidates sponsored by the Abuja-based politicians have failed woefully, winning “a little over 10 per cent” of the total seats, while their Kaduna-based counterparts won about 80 per cent.

About six candidates have so far obtained nomination forms for the position of state chairman; two of whom were from zone one, including the interim management committee chairman Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, and four from zone two.

In Gombe, there are basically two power blocs; the Senator Danjuma Goje-led group and that of Ahmed Khamisu Mailantarki.

In the just concluded APC state congresses that took place last Saturday in the state, the Senator Danjuma Goje bloc was said to have clinched all the positions.

Zonal vice chairman of the party, Julius Ishaya, said all party members have agreed that the leader of the party in the state is Danjuma Goje, maintaining there was no any other power bloc apart from the one led Danjuma Goje.

Goje defected to the APC from PDP while members of the Mailantarki group became APC members after their defunct parties merged to form the APC.