ABUJA, March 27, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Nigeria's ruling party has appointed a
new chairman at a national convention meant to end infighting as it prepares
to select a candidate to replace President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2023
election.

  Buhari, who was first elected in 2015, spent weeks negotiating with the
party's state governors and delegates to push a consensus position before the
convention on Saturday.

  Late Saturday night, the party agreed on Abdullahi Adamu, a senator who had
been backed by Buhari to avoid more infighting, according to All Progressives
Congress (APC) party electoral committee.

  "I had cause to intervene in the leadership crisis which was about to cause
confusion," Buhari said in a statement. "We must avoid overheating the polity
and not allow our differences to tear and frustrate the party."

  Political jockeying has already begun to replace Buhari as leader of
Africa's most populous nation but the race remains open with several
heavyweights in the running.

  Thousands of delegates and supporters had packed into a stadium in the
capital Abuja, where the APC sought to end the bickering that Buhari warned
could undermine its success in the 2023 vote.

  The appointment of a new party chairman and delegates was a final stage
before primaries later this year for a presidential candidate.

  Formed in an alliance of several parties in 2013, the APC managed to win in
2015 over the long-ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), which at the time
was battling its own internal splits.

  Buhari, who came to power promising to bring security and fight corruption,
steps down pointing to his successes in infrastructure and transport
projects.

  But Nigeria is still battling jihadists in its northeast and its northwest
region has been hit hard by criminal gangs behind a spate of attacks and mass
kidnappings.

  On Saturday, an armed gang attacked Kaduna City airport, killing one
security guard and briefly disrupting flights, in another escalation of
bandit violence in the northwest region.

  Africa's largest economy and top oil producer is recovering from the
setback of the coronavirus pandemic, but recent fuel and electricity
shortages have underlined cost-of-living woes for Nigerians.

  Several presidential candidates have already made their ambitions known,
including former Lagos State governor and APC strongman Bola Tinubu, and
opposition PDP stalwart and former vice president Atiku Abubakar.

  Under an unwritten agreement among elites, Nigeria's presidency is expected
to rotate between a candidate from the mostly Muslim north and the
predominantly Christian south.

  After two terms with Buhari, a Muslim from the north, many southern leaders
are pushing for the presidency to return to a candidate from their region.