The governors after the meeting declared that the party is not jittery over the emergence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the main opposition Presidential candidate in the 2019 election.
Rochas Okorocha, Chairman of the APC Governors’ Forum, speaking to state house correspondents after the meeting, said: “I don’t know about talking tough, we can’t be jittery and history is there to speak, history is very important and it is there to speak, so like I said we are not going to engage in this verbal war with anybody, we will be talking about issues. If we say look, you are not good, we tell you what we can do and we cannot do and what others cannot do.
“APC is not going to join in those talk shop but we are discussing issues of what our party can do for our people.”
Okorocha expressed hope that Buhari would be reelected in 2019.
Other governors at the meeting attended by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, included Mohammed Abubakar (Bauchi); Abdullahi Gamduje (Kano); Kashim Shettima (Borno); and Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos)
Also at the meeting was the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha.
Okorocha said that the party had no reason to lose sleep over Atiku’s emergence.
He said that the APC governors were at the State House not only to congratulate Buhari for being elected as the party’s presidential candidate, but to also request for a date when they would bring all the party’s governorship candidates to him to show their readiness for the 2019 political battles.
“For the Governors to come together with our followers and supporters to further inform the world for our readiness to deliver him in 2019 election.
“This is just basically the message we have come and to say that Mr. President is more than ever ready for the entire exercise.
“Our election this time will not engage on castigations or talking. We will be taking on issues, Nigerians are tired of political abuses, what we want to be talking about is issues, the tract records of people involved in our elections.
“Nigerians are very wise now, before they elect anybody they will ask questions, what has been your tract records, who were you before, who are you now and everything about you. And for that reason, we are confident that in 2019, APC will go through.
“We have also looked at the issues concerning our primaries, in every democracy, you should expect a kind of disagreement and we have kindly requested that something be done to bring warring factions together so that we can have a united party to face the challenges ahead and we are happy that will soon take place.
“Most of the problems have been resolved except for one or two states where we have issues and where it becomes more difficult, we ask for Mr. President’s intervention in the matter.
“We are talking about reconciliation, what is important to us is that we must never go into this battle, a divided family and we want to make sure that all governors are intact, all National Assembly members are intact while going into this battle.
“We will never speak differently, we will speak as members of the party,” he added.
