State Of The Party Report, By Iyiola Omisore

SPECIAL CONVENTION, ABUJA 2022 BY SENATOR IYIOLA OMISORE PhD; FNSE, CON, NATIONAL SECRETARY, ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESSP

Protocols

It gives me great delight to welcome our leaders, delegates, members as well as a broad range of stakeholders to this historic special convention to elect the presidential flagbearer of our great party for the 2023 general elections.Collectively, we have established, well beyond the shores of Nigeria, the enviable unity of purpose during our national convention on the 26th of March 2022 when we elected new members of our National Working Committee and adopted a new constitution for our great party.

Under the leadership of our national chairman, HE Senator Abdullahi Adamu, we continue to make significant strides to deepen our unity, strengthen core functions in the national secretariat and position our great party to sustain its leadership of democratic governance in Nigeria. With about forty three million members, our unique ability to reach everyone continues to rise both nationally and across all nations. We remain undisputedly, a leading democratic institution, not only in Nigeria, but in the African region.We have taken forward the many of the provisions of our new constitution. These reinforce the clarity of our purpose and provide the much-needed framework with which we have vigorously commenced to establish systems of fair play, inclusion, and accountability not only to our members but to the Nigerian population.Primary elections for our flag bearers for gubernatorial, the Senate, House of Representatives and State House of Assemblies have been peacefully conducted across all states with the exception of states with different election dates including Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Ondo and Osun. We are well poised to deliver successful elections in Ekiti in June and Osun in July of this year.Our primary elections processes included at risk screening, elections and appeal committees. We have sought to ensure utmost inclusion across party members taking into consideration geographic spread, gender, youth and persons with disability. We have taken great care to ensure that we remain responsive to the aspirations of our members, of Nigerians, and have given consideration to the diversity in vision, interests and aspirations as must be expected in a political party with 43 million members whose leaders hold in custody at its highest levels the democratic governance and future of our nation in their hands.We have achieved this feat despite tight timelines from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and with full compliance with its procedures and guidelines.We must express deep appreciation to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, HE President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, leaders of our party in the National Executive Committee (NEC) for their visionary foresight to temporarily yield their executive powers to the National Working Committee (NWC) at this time. This realist approach has facilitated consultations and made decision making less burdensome, progressively proactive and nimble.Our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) gather today to elect our Presidential flagbearer in the 2023 general elections. The pathway to this day reaffirms the internal democracy within the APC for which many value us, and have joined us.Together with our members and leaders in each of the geo political zones, governor’s fora and many other instruments of our internal democracy, we have prepared, and will by the grace of God, deliver a successful special convention, and a presidential flagbearer acceptable not only to all members of our great party, but to all Nigerians wherever they live, work and play.I thank you for your kind attention.

Senator Iyiola Omisore PhD; FNSE, CON

National Secretary,All Progressives Congress,