Public Engagement: Buhari, APC Govs Storm Owerri
As part of its strategies of engaging with Nigerians and sharing successful policies and programs among states governed by the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party’s governors, under the aegis of the Progressive Governors Forum, PGF, are scheduled to meet in Owerri, the Imo State capital on Monday, March 23, 2015.
The session, under the theme, “March for a New Nigeria” will be chaired by the APC’s Presidential candidate, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, who is billed to deliver a paper on how a prospective APC-led federal government will work with state governments. In addition to the presidential and vice presidential candidates, governors and governorship candidates, the party’s leadership will also be in attendance as the APC fine-tunes it electoral strategies to win the presidential and state governorship elections.
The conference will provide a platform for in-depth interaction between the progressive governors and some professional groups regarding the relationship between the recommended policies and the reality of dwindling resources in the country as well as the issue of insurgency and how to regain normalcy in the troubled areas.
Chairman of the PGF and Imo state governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, and his Lagos state counterpart, Babatunde Raji Fashola, will also speak on the imperative peaceful and credible elections, while Governors Kashim Shettima, Rauf Aregbesola and Adams Oshiomhole of Borno, Osun and Edo states, respectively, will speak on issues ranging from plans for a post Boko Haram reconstruction, strategies for sustaining governance in times of dwindling resources and the effects of PDP’s mishandling of the economy and its consequences on state finances.
In addition to the PGF governors, national leadership, and candidates, the party’s National Working Committee, media executives and civil society and professional groups and members of the public are expected to make contributions, while the occasion will provide the opportunity for the PGF to formally present the Progressive Governors Forum Policy Document, which was put together from the recommendations made at the forum’s public lecture series in 2014.