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The All Progressives Congress (APC) has finally caved in to pressures from its governors, approving the use of indirect primary for the selection of the party’s candidates for the 2019 general election without recourse to the National Working Committee (NWC).
The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had at its last meeting approved direct primary for nomination for the party’s tickets but asked states that wanted to use indirect primary to apply for approval from the NWC.
The governors had risen up in arms against this proviso, pitting them against federal legislators who preferred the direct primary, which they felt would clip the wings of the states’ chief executives.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the governors with the NWC, the case for indirect primary was strongly made again and the governors had their way.
The party also said Thursday there was no crisis in its Lagos branch, explaining that the contestation for the party’s governorship ticket among Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Dr. Obafemi Hamzat did not amount to a dispute.
Ambode, whose return bid is being hotly challenged by Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat of the Mandate Movement and Justice Forum respectively, held a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday as part of his efforts to push forward his aspiration for a second term of office.
The meeting with the governors held at the Imo State Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro in Abuja, concluded that the state branches could now adopt indirect primary if majority of the party executives endorsed it.
Unlike the earlier stance of the party that all primary elections should be by direct voting process, the ruling party after a four-hour meeting between the national chairman and the governors elected on its platform resolved that the states are free to use either direct or indirect method to elect candidates for the 2019 general election.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, Governor of Imo State and Chairman of the APC Governors’ Forum, Chief Rochas Okorocha, said the party had decided to adopt both direct and indirect primary elections as long as the process was free, transparent and would give equal chance to all the participants.
He also said that majority of the states were going for indirect primaries.
He said, “We just held a meeting with the Chairman and we’ve resolved that in support of the party that we are going to have free and fair primaries. Everybody will be given equal chance to participate in the primaries, which will be transparent, free and fair.
“And we have adopted both direct and indirect and most of the states are going for indirect primaries, but for the president, it is going to be direct primaries.”
Okorocha assured Nigerians that the APC was ready for free and transparent primaries, adding that the party was also ready to clinch victory in the elections in 2019.
Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, said what the party was after was the position of the majority of members of the state party executive.
According to him, “There is no way 100 per cent of the party will agree to one thing. There will always be some that will disagree but the decision of NEC is that the majority of the state executive committee decided on the mode of primaries.”
With regard to Kaduna State, the governor said the majority of the state executive committee had decided to adopt indirect primaries.
Oshiomhole who emerged from the meeting beaming with smiles said that the major task before the party was to ensure free and transparent primary elections.
He described the decision to settle for direct and indirect primaries as proper and in line with the party’s constitution.
“It is not a new decision that our constitution consciously provided for flexibility, first to reflect the diversity of our great country and also to try to give expression to the entire essence of federalism,” he said.
He promised that the NWC would ensure that the process is democratic, the rules fair and officiating impartial.
Oshiomhole also spoke on tension in the Lagos State over the challenge to Ambode’s second term bid, saying as far as the party was concerned, there was no rancour in the state and that the allusion that the governor was embattled was false and unfounded.
He said, “There is no APC governor that is embattled and because we are democratic, the best way to measure democracy is the presence of more than one person showing interest in an office.
“That does not make any other person embattled. But of course the media can create this impression that there is an earthquake in Lagos, there is no earthquake.”
Rakes in N8.7bn from N’Assembly Nomination Forms
Meanwhile, the party earned N8,732,600,000 from sale of nomination forms for the Senate and House of Representatives seats.
From the sale of 386 forms for Senate seats, the party got N2.702,000,000 while it obtained N1,272,600,000 from sale of 1,587 House of Representatives forms.
