Joshua Omoloye, Abuja
Factional youths in the All Progressives’ Congress, (APC) have agreed to close rank as the party’s national convention inches closer.
The youth’ groups under the umbrella of Progressives’ Youth Movement, (PYM) have been involved in APC leadership tussle as they had been divided alongside factions adopting Prince Mustapha Audu as interim Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Chairman and that affirming the leadership of the Governor Mai Mala Buni Committee.
The opposing factions said the major contending issue was the date of the national convention, which has been resolved.
Coming on a roundtable, the groups at the party National Secretariat’, Buhari House on Monday, leader of PYM
and national youth leader, APC Barr Ismael Buba Ahmed agreed to jettison divisive tendencies and work together to take prominent space as youths in the new leadership to be installed by the coming national convention.
The APC Youth Leader said “In any political party or organization, their is bound to be disagreement. Our brothers and sisters here have had to express their concerns over certain things over a period of time and now, we are all here, we have reconciled.
“They have tabled their concerns and the party, taken care of some of these concerns because the party has listening ear.
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“We are here to hold our hands and sing ‘kumbaya’ that, we are one united party. We are here to proceed and work together in the forthcoming party convention and the general elections in 2023.”
He further said the party has agreed to including the youths in leadership positions, particularly, the position of ‘Youth Leader’ .
In his contribution, Prince Mustapha Audu said “we clamoured for a convention in February and the leadership of the party listened and gave us February convention. We clamoured for 26th and they gave us; We clamoured that letter be transmitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) and it was done.
“As we speak, in all fairness, it will be wrong of us to continue anything further, knowing that our leaders have listened to us. The only issue which of course, we know they are working on is the inclusion of young people at the convention. So we are standing together with our leader, representing over forty million youths to say, we are firmly, behind him, (Ismael) and the leadership of the party because they have listened to us.”
Expressing satisfaction with the resolution, Aliyu Audu, Convener of APC Rebirth said “all we have requested is to have confidence in leadership of the party and to ensure we have a truly progressive party that meets expectations of all.
“We look forward to actual inclusion of young people in the convention and post convention, in the management of party, by extension, in the formation of government after 2023 election, which we believe we are
going to win.”