The agenda of the closed-door meeting was the take-off date of the party’s campaigns for the 2019 general elections.
Oshiomhole, who spoke briefly with journalists at the Presidential Villa after the meeting, said the APC was ready for the campaigns, adding that the character and integrity of the key candidates would be the focus.
The chairman said, “We are fully ready; we are done with our primaries and filed our nominations. As you know, the Independent National Electoral Commission still has a window between now and first of January to deal with issues of substitution. As for the campaigns, we are ready.
“We are going to announce the date and programme for our campaigns, and speak to the issues. My idea of kick-off will be the day we will do our first presidential rally where Mr President as our candidate and other candidates, party leaders will assemble in a venue that will be agreeable to all of us.
“There will be two sets of messages. One, on what we have done in the past, without failing to remind people of where we were before, what we are going to do in the next three years, and a couple of things we believe we will be doing differently.
He added, “Why we are a better choice? President Buhari, if compared to the rest of the aspirants, there is no basis to compare day and night. The real issue in this election is not going to be religion. It is not going to be about political party.
“Central to the issue and given our past experience as a country, we know that what makes a difference is the character, the issue of integrity of the candidates.
“All those issues of character, especially looking at the past, the key candidates in the election are not strangers to governance, they are not even strangers to this villa, so we will be able to ask a couple of questions about what do they know now that they didn’t know then when they had power.
“This edition is going to be focusing on character, integrity of those who want to govern us. In addition to what and how they will do thing. Commenting on the dispute in the Imo State chapter of the party over the choice of governorship candidate, Oshiomhole stated, “What is the crisis? That somebody won and somebody lost and the person who lost said no, no, no, I am the son-in-law to the governor I can’t lose and therefore we have crisis?”
Credit: Punch
