National Assembly members on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC), have agreed to support the emergence of the national chairman of the party through a consensus arrangement.

The APC lawmakers led by the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, visited President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday ahead of the March 26 convention. 

Mr Gbajabiamila, while speaking with state house correspondents described the meeting as productive, and necessary to encourage all stakeholders to approach the convention as a common front.

The speaker said the president invited the principal officers of the APC to hold a meeting with them, where he emphasised the need for them to be united, focused and as one family.

“Mr President also emphasised the need for us to ensure that we have a successful convention on the 26th of this month, March. This convention, by way of emphasis, is a very important convention for us in the APC, and by the grace of God, through our processes and procedures, at different levels of the party, the convention would be a very successful one and very peaceful one.

“We hope that we would have achieved so much consensus in selecting and electing the officers for this party so that when we go into the convention, most of the officers would be for affirmation or confirmation.”

Mr Gbajabiamila then expressed optimism that by Friday, all stakeholders would have agreed to a consensus candidate for the position of the national chairman. 

“The essence of this engagement is for the party to achieve consensus, and consensus is a process. It doesn’t just happen like that,” he said.