The crisis preceding the national convention and presidential primaries of the ruling All Progressives Congress intensified on Monday night after the party’s chairman went underground.

Abdullahi Adamu’s whereabouts became largely unknown despite escalated activities over the party’s ongoing convention in Abuja.

Mr Adamu was not at the office when APC governors arrived to hold a meeting with him over unresolved issues dogging the convention. President Muhammadu Buhari had asked the governors to meet with Mr Adamu and settle outstanding questions around zoning and consensus of the party’s presidential ticket.

“We don’t know where he disappeared to and the governors and other important people are saying they have to see him urgently,” a senior party official told Peoples Gazette. “It is hard to believe that the chairman could just leave his office and switch off his phones like that.”

The governors we compelled to meet only with other members of the National Working Committee (NWC) at the party’s headquarters.

The APC governors were coordinated at the meeting by their chairman and Kebbi Governor Abubakar Atiku-Bagudu. They met in camera at the NEC Hall of the party’s national secretariat.

The meeting was presided over by Abubakar Kyari, deputy national chairman north.

The governors and some members of the NWC have been seething over Mr Adamu’s plot to impose Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the party’s presidential candidate under a consensus arrangement.

Mr Adamu had said Mr Buhari asked him to make the move, a claim that was swiftly debunked by the president’s aides in official statements.

Other members of the NWC have said they will be siding with the northern governors to ensure the emergence of a southern as the party’s flagbearer.

Mr Bagudu said the governors will continue to search for Mr Adamu to ensure that all issues are resolved and the party is not plunged into further crisis during its two-day convention.

A spokesman for Mr Adamu did not return a request seeking comments about the chairman’s whereabouts.