Governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) under the auspices of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) have agreed to adopt uniform common initiatives to emerge as a distinctly social democratic party.
Governors Mohammed Badaru Abubakar and Simon Lalong of Jigawa and Plateau State disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at an inaugural meeting of the PGF Governance Programme Steering Committee (PGPSC) that was constituted by all APC governors.
The PGPSC chairman Badaru and co-chairman Lalong, who was represented by his deputy, Prof. Sonni Tyoden said the uniformity of policy initiatives among the APC states was a fundamental requirement.
Lalong, who said the APC governors had made some efforts between 20l5 and 20l9 to adopt common initiatives, added that the forum had already agreed to some priorities, including revenue mobilisation, funding for security, education and health based on assessment of initiatives from their states and critical assessments of the challenges facing them.
He said the governors had already adopted Prototype Bills in the four areas mentioned above for domestication in states through the work of Secretaries of Governments of APC States, facilitated by the PGPSC.
Prof. Tyoden said, “While in some cases, progress has been made, it needs to be acknowledged that much work will be required, especially in ensuring that progress being recorded translate to producing a distinctive governance and political identity for all APC states.
“We need to aggressively ensure that we are able to settle all public debates around the distinction between APC, on the one hand, and PDP and other parties, on the other. It is not a theoretical issue but concretely about the initiatives coming from APC governments, especially the states.
“With the experiences we had between 20l5 and 20l9, we want to ensure that we are able to speed up actions to produce these common initiatives. Recognising the profile of members of our Governance Programme Steering activities, we will be initiating will help to speed up progress in ensuring the emergence of some uniform attributes for all APC States.”
Earlier, the governor of Jigawa State said the governors wanted the committee to focus more on strengthening the capacity of states to have increased commitment to implement approved initiatives between 2019 and 2023.
He, however, said the task might require more initiatives around issues of capacity development for functionaries of in States.
“Together with my colleague, HE Simon Lalong, we will take more steps to ensure that Forum is able to give you the needed support to ensure that we are able to get all the technical services for us to achieve our vision.
“On behalf of our Progressive Governors, I want to assure you of our commitment to serve our people and nation and invite you to consider the work of the PGF Governance Steering Committee as an opportunity to directly engage us to strengthen governance initiatives across all our APC states,” Badaru.
