By Eshioromeh Sebastian
President Bola Tinubu and APC governors spent a second day behind closed doors at Aso Rock on Thursday, fighting to contain a raging crisis over the party’s controversial Presidential Campaign Council list that has thrown the ruling party into disarray.
The meeting, which started around 4pm on Wednesday and stretched into the night, resumed on Thursday after the National Economic Council session chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Sources say tempers flared as governors demanded answers over a list they claim was cobbled together by a few Presidency officials without consulting the party’s broader leadership.
Sources within the party have raised serious concern about the composition of the council.
They claimed that the party was not carried along. A few people in the Presidency — the Special Adviser on Political Matters and his cronies — sat in a room and cooked up this list. Now they’re running around trying to put out a fire they started.
The APC was forced to delete the original PCC list from its official X handle after Nigerians and party stalwarts alike slammed the inclusions — particularly the naming of controversial figures facing corruption charges. The move has been widely interpreted as an admission of error by a party that prides itself on discipline.
A source close to the Progressives Governors’ Forum confirmed that the governors are demanding significant changes.
But while the governors push for a broader overhaul, the President’s media aide, Sunday Dare, has been careful to manage expectations, insisting that only “adjustments” — not a wholesale review — are on the table.
“Not a review, just adjustments where necessary,” Dare told journalists. “Review is wholesale. This is not wholesale. Subcommittees will still be formed, and more names will come in.”
Spear News understands that beyond the campaign list crisis, the APC leadership is plotting a massive social intervention push to win back the hearts of Nigerians battered by economic hardship. The strategy: use food distribution, cash transfers, and skills programmes to soften the ground ahead of the January 2027 polls.
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