‘Declare whether you are with or against Tinubu’ – APC Forum tells Nasarawa gov, Abdullahi Sule

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The North-Central All Progressives Congress, APC, Forum has advised Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, to cease playing “double game” and come clear on whether he is with President Bola Tinubu or collaborating with those who are adverse to the President.

The Forum, in a statement by its Chairman, Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, frowned at recent comments made by Governor Sule questioning the political trajectory of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, faction in the APC.

The APC was created by the merger of several political groups, including the CPC. Recently, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State and vice president Atiku Abubakar, has been courting members of the bloc to join the opposition alliance.

Some CPC bloc leaders pledged loyalty to President Bola Tinubu and the APC in April, led by former Nasarawa State Governor Tanko Al-Makura, who said the group would not join the coalition.

Al-Makura and his colleagues were rebutted by Abubakar Malami, a former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation. Malami maintained that the CPC bloc, of which he is a member, and the former president Muhammadu Buhari’s camp should decide whether to join the opposition alliance or not, not Al-Makura’s group.

Nasarawa State governor, Sule, addressing at a reception in Lafia on May 3, 2025, backed Malami’s viewpoint, saying: “There is only one person in this world that can decide for the CPC, and that is our father, Muhammadu Buhari. Nobody speaks for the CPC more than this man. The day he says CPC is with you, then CPC is with you.

“The day he says CPC is not with you, it is not with you. Because he is the CPC himself. He keeps carrying his 12 million voters along with him everywhere he goes.”

The North-Central APC Forum responded to the incident by stating that Sule’s remarks indicate that he disagrees with the previous pledge of loyalty to Tinubu by the CPC bloc led by Al-Makura, his predecessor as governor of Nasarawa State. Nasarawa is part of North-Central Nigeria.

The APC Forum noted that members of former President Buhari’s team have been attempting to deny and minimize the development ever after Al-Makura led a group of other former CPC leaders, including former Katsina State governor Bello Masari, to swear the bloc’s allegiance to Tinubu.

The Forum, in the statement signed by Zazzaga, a member of the APC campaign council in the 2023 election, highlighted that there was no justification for Sule to continue to speak on the political direction of the CPC bloc after Al-Makura persuaded other leaders of the bloc to swear devotion to Tinubu.

“Abdullahi Sule should stop playing double game and come out clean on whether he is with President Bola Tinubu or working with elements in the camp of the former President, who we know do not want the success of the Tinubu administration.

“Nobody will say he is more CPC than Alhaji Tanko Al-Makura, former Governor of Nasarawa State. It is on the records that Al-Makura was the only person who was able to become the governor of a state on the platform of the CPC. No other person achieved that feat.

“Having a governor, in the person of Tanko Al-Makura, gave the CPC a major advantage in the negotiations that resulted in the formation of the APC – which ultimately led to President Muhammadu Buhari’s APC government in 2015.

“He (Al-Makura) was the highest ranking officer in the CPC platform. Even former President Muhammadu Buhari was not able to produce a governor for the CPC in Katsina, his home state. So nobody will lay claim to the leadership of CPC apart from Al-Makura. If Abdullahi Sule is coming out to say that nobody speaks for the CPC bloc apart from former President Muhammadu Buhari, it’s like he is not happy with the endorsement of President Bola Tinubu by Al-Makura and other leaders of the CPC bloc. It means he is against the action they took.

“We are forced to believe that Governor Abdullahi Sule is working with those who do not want the success of President Bola Tinubu’s administration,” parts of the statement said.

In a similar spirit, the Forum pointed out that Sule was not a part of the CPC and was not present when the APC was formed.

“We are not surprised that Abdullahi Sule is saying the things he said because he does not understand the history of CPC and the APC but we advise that he should stop talking of political issues which he does not understand,” the statement added.

The North-Central APC Forum said that the Nasarawa governor did not endorse Tinubu during the party’s presidential primaries.

“When Tinubu emerged President we expected that he will turn around to support his administration but he is showing that he is not with us. This is so because he is associating with those who are not with the President.

“The North-Central APC Forum is asking Governor Abdullahi Sule to make his position clear. He should say whether he is with those who are working against President Bola Tinubu, who he appears to to hobnobbing with at the moment. If not he should avoid those people and sincerely support the President,” the statement said.

Sule’s early resistance to Tinubu’s tax reform proposals was cited by the Forum as a sign that he might not be entirely loyal to the president.

They also cited remarks made by the governor of Nasarawa in October 2024, in which he stated that the nation is suffering as a result of the reforms the president has implemented.

“As stakeholders of the North-Central who have endorsed President Bola Tinubu for a second term in 2027, we salute the Tanko Al-Makura-led CPC bloc for standing behind Mr. President and rejecting the coalition, which we believe is a a gang up by self-serving politicians to reverse the progress made in the country since May 29, 2023.

“The true leaders of the CPC bloc, led by Tanko Al-Makura, have spoken out to pledge loyalty to President Bola Tinubu and the APC. So any debate on who should speak for the bloc is not necessary. Anybody who is truly with Mr. President would not be making any comments to counter or downplay the significance of the endorsement of the President by Tanko Al-Makura and other leaders.

“The impression that Abdullahi Sule, Abubakar Malami and others are giving to Nigerians is that they are opposed to the endorsement of President Bola Tinubu by the CPC bloc. They can’t oppose the endorsement and also claim they are with President Bola Tinubu.

“If they are truly with the President, we advise that they fall in line with other progressives and work for the success of President Bola Tinubu’s administration and his reelection in 2027,” the APC Forum added.

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