FORMER Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff has said it is the goal of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) to rule Nigeria for the next 30 to 40 years.
Sheriff, who is one of the aspirants looking to clinch the party’s national chairman during its forthcoming convention in December, stated this to newsmen on Sunday.
He said that the party’s future after the exit of President Muhammadu Buhari from office solely rested on its ability to continue to earn the trust of Nigerians through the hard work of members.
“Today, as a party, we are only six years in government. Our aspirations are for the APC to be in government in the next 30 to 40 years,” he said.
“He (Buhari) brought that to the table and what are we going to face after the exit of His Excellency, the President? It is we, the APC members, that will tell the world that we are capable of getting their trust even when he finishes his tenure.
“Doing that doesn’t come on the platter of gold; we need to put in hard work. You need everybody.”
He said he was consulting with leaders across the party to tell them what the party needed to stay in power after Buhari, who he said was “a rugged captain; you don’t need a captain that will capsize.”
Sherriff’s comments are coming weeks after he told newsmen that Nigerians had lost confidence in the APC.
The former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had noted that his party must work harder than ever before to gain Nigerians’ confidence to retain power beyond 2023.
As Nigerians are warming to face the polls in 2023 with calls for the South to produce the next president of the country irrespective of the party the candidate emerges from, there are also opinions that Nigerians should be presented with another choice of political parties other than the present two dominant parties they have known since the country returned to democracy in 1999.
