APC presidential candidates shun meeting with Bola Tinubu called to bury the hatchet

ALL Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has suffered a major setback in his attempt to build a party consensus around his candidacy after the 19 other aspirants who stood against him shunned a recent conciliatory meeting in Abuja.

In June, Asiwaju Tinubu  emerged as the APC presidential candidate after coasting home in a landslide victory at the party's convention in Abuja. In a bid to get all the other candidates to rally around his candidacy, Asiwaju Tinubu has planned to meet with them yesterday at 2pm at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.

It was expected that the meeting would also brainstorm and come up with viable strategies to support Asiwaju Tinubu's candidacy. One of the former aspirants, Dr Nicolas Felix, said the move was to ensure that the party wins the February 2023 presidential election.

However, a few hours to the commencement of the meeting, Dr Felix the youngest of the aspirants, announced its postponement, stating that a new date would be announced. One source within the party, said, however, that apart from Dr Felix, no other aspirant was interested in the meeting.

According to the party source, the majority of the former aspirants were still in shock that the former Lagos State governor won the June 8 primary election. It appears that some of the losing candidates are not willing to work with Asiwaju Tinubu because of the way he won according to the party source.

He said: “I can confidently tell you that over 19 of them are not ready to work with Asiwaju to win the 2023 election. How many of them have you seen talking about Tinubu?

“The election didn’t go as expected and some of us are still in shock. Having a strategy to sell our candidate is a major issue.”