Finances Threaten Tinubu’s Presidential Ambition As APC To Release Fresh Campaign Council List

Barring any last-minute change, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is set to announce a revised edition of its campaign council list this week in a bid to end the crisis rocking the party.

Naija News understands that the release of the new campaign council list would also signal the commencement of the APC campaigns.

It would, however, be impossible for all members of the ruling APC to make the final campaign council list.

A top official of the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) disclosed that the Governor Simon Lalong-led PCC has also asked the Senate Adamu Abdullahi-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC to back the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, financially.

“Everybody has been accommodated. The comprehensive names of the members of the directorates will now be released. There are some directorates that we may have up to 30 to 40 names as members. These comprehensive names will be released this week. But, it is important to warn that there is no way every member of the party will be a committee member,” said the source, who declined to have his name mentioned, told Daily Sun.

He added that it does not make sense for the NWC members to be jostling to be members of the campaign council, stressing that the position of the NWC is superior to that of the campaign council.

“Imagine, for instance, the national publicity secretary or national organising secretary of the ruling party struggling to be the director of a campaign council when the council should be statutorily reporting to them,” he said.

APC Nominations Form

It was gathered that who is meant to handle the finance of the presidential campaign is also threatening to tear the ruling party apart as the NWC has been called to support Tinubu’s campaign financially.

A top member of the APC told Daily Sun that the NWC and PCC last weekend declared a cold war against each other over who handles the proposed plan to organize fundraising for the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

He said while the party’s leadership insisted on taking charge, the PCC eggheads claimed the NWC ought to support the presidential candidate with part of the funds realised from the sales of nomination forms rather than struggling to take charge of the funds donated by the sponsors of the candidate.

Reacting to the development, a member of the PCC accused the party’s leadership of a calculated scheme to destabilize the presidential candidate with one form of frivolity or the other.

He, however, blamed the unending rift between them on the leadership style of the National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu.

The source said: “Anywhere in the world, the candidate owns his campaign. He appoints what they call campaign manager in the USA or director general in Nigeria, who runs the candidate’s campaign operations and activities. They employ personnel, recruit volunteers, support structures, and, more importantly, run its budget. In every part of the world with modern democracy, the parties will raise their funds to support their candidates.

“Even if individuals donate to the campaign through the candidate, it does not stop the party from raising its fund from traditional donors to support the candidates. The party’s traditional donors are different from other donors that want to support the candidates.”