THE All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, and other appointees of President Muhammadu Buhari to resign their respective positions if they cannot campaign openly for the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
The APC Deputy National spokesperson Murtala Yakubu Ajaka made this known in a statement on Saturday.
Ajaka was reacting to comments Ngige made when he appeared on Channels Television Politics Today programme on Friday.
Ngige had failed to publicly affirm his choice of presidential candidate between Tinubu and the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi when he was asked to do so by the presenter.
Instead, he retorted that such a question was difficult to answer because Tinubu and Obi were his friends, stressing that he would only make his choice on the ballot paper.
“My choice will be in the ballot box. On the day of the ballot, I will make my choice. I won’t tell Nigerians what I will do secretly,” he said.
However, in a swift reaction, Ajaka said the minister’s stance as a sitting minister in a government of the ruling party was “uncalled for.”
He wondered how the party would fare in next year’s election if someone in the calibre of the minister failed to openly declare his support for the party’s flagbearer in next year’s election.
He enjoined that all members of the party, including the ones serving in Buhari’s government, must put their ambition aside and work for Tinubu’s victory.
“Chief Ngige and other APC appointees, especially in the federal cabinet should not forget in a hurry that they are holding onto party’s mandate, hence the need to protect it with whatever it requires, but if they can no longer protect the interest of the APC in public and that of our presidential candidate (Tinubu), I think the honourable thing to do is to step aside from the government formed by the APC,” the statement said in part.
While calling on Buhari to call his ministers to order, Ajaka noted that if such a trend was allowed to continue among the appointees and party leaders, it was capable of generating bad blood among the APC rank and file.
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