About 2,340 delegates of All Progressives Congress (APC) will today decide the fate of the party’s 22 presidential aspirants, as confusion hits the party over consensus candidate.
The delegates from the 774 local government areas in the country and area councils in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will cast their votes to elect a presidential candidate of the APC.
Buhari had declared before the party’s 13 northern state governors that he has “no preferred candidate” and has “anointed no one.”
11 APC governors from the North had in a statement last Saturday announced their decision to support rotation of power to the South in 2023.
But the APC was on Monday, thrown into confusion following the announcement by the national chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, that Senate President Ahmad Lawan had been endorsed by the presidential candidate of the party.
Members of the national working committee (NWC) and the Northern Governors Forum, immediately lashed back at attempt by Adamu to impose Lawan as consensus.
APC governors and members of the NWC are still running from pillar to post to resolve the crisis generated by the issue of consensus presidential candidate for the party ahead of today’s presidential primary billed to hold at Eagle Square, Abuja.
News of the endorsement of Lawan by the NWC had made the rounds in the media, with online newspapers reporting that Adamu told NWC members at their meeting at the party’s secretariat that President Muhammadu Buhari has endorsed Lawan as consensus candidate for the 2023 presidential poll.
He told the NWC members that he arrived at the choice of Lawan after consultation with President Buhari.
But some members of the NWC had opposed the move, insisting that other presidential aspirants must be allowed to contest the primary election at today’s special convention.
Argungu, in the company of four other members of the NWC, stated that the NWC only treated the issue as information from the national chairman and did not deliberate it at the meeting.
Noting that like every other member, Adamu was entitled to his opinion, the NWC led by APC national organising secretary, Suleiman Argungu, said, “It is just a piece of information that he gave us. It is not an issue that has to be deliberated by NWC.
“It is information. All of us are entitled to our opinion. We are all democrats. This decision was never taken by the NWC. That is just information and not an issue that was discussed by the NWC. Just recently, the northern governors had their meeting. We as members of the NWC, are with the governors on what they have said.
“He did brief us that Ahmad Lawan is our consensus candidate. That is just information, not an issue that was discussed by the NWC.”
Meanwhile, APC governors who had earlier held their meeting at Kebbi Governors Lodge in Asokoro, Abuja later met with President Buhari at the presidential villa.
At the meeting, the president told the governors that he was determined to ensure that there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party.
Buhari said the party is important and its members must be respected and made to feel they are important.
A statement by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, quoted the president as saying he had a clear mind about what he was doing and asked the APC governors to feel the same way.
“You were elected as I was; have a clear mind as I have. God gave us the chance; we have no reason to complain. We must be ready to take pain as we take the joy. Allow the delegates to decide. The party must participate, nobody will appoint anybody,” Buhari said.
Earlier in their addresses, the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Simon Lalong and Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, said they had come to affirm the position of the Northern governors that the party’s candidate in the presidential election should come from the southern part of the country.
They apologised to the president for the leakage of their signed memorandum which was not in support of any particular candidate and gave assurances to the president on their readiness to accept his leadership on the matter.
The governors said they restated their call for the rotation of the presidential ticket of the party to the south, affirming that it was their decision, which they were standing by.
He said, “We had a meeting this afternoon with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, our dear President Muhammadu Buhari and this meeting is also in line with part of the consultations that Mr. President had.
“Of course, Mr. President had a meeting with us governors and series of people, but at the APC Northern Governors’ Forum, we sat down, we reviewed a lot of things in this country and we discussed at length the unity of this country, about the need for progress and the need for inclusiveness, and also the need for accommodation.
“We sat down in the last few days and 13 out of 14 governors agreed. We took the decision to go and advise Mr. President. While we were on our way to advise Mr. President, I think part of the discussions that we had leaked out to the press.
“Well, we still went ahead and we told Mr. President. Mr. President, being a democrat, said no, he must listen to us, he would listen to us. And so, Mr. President granted the opportunity today.
“Our mission today is to reaffirm our position on that statement. We also apologised to him that, that statement was made by all of us and we reaffirm the position, but we apologised that the statement leaked out before even our consultations with him.”
Meanwhile, chairman of Southern Governors Forum Rotimi Akeredolu blasted the national chairman of the APC, Adamu, over his alleged pronouncement of Senate President Lawan as the consensus presidential candidate of the party.
Akeredolu, in a statement he personally issued, said such endorsement was nothing but a joke.
He stated: “He has, allegedly, made public his preferred choice as the candidate of the APC for the Office of the President in the next general elections.
“This alleged pronouncement runs contrary to the position of the majority of Northern Governors in APC and their counterparts in the South. Our agreement is unanimous on this issue.
“The office of the President should be contested for by qualified persons from the Southern part of the country if the move to get a consensus candidate fails. There has been no shift from this settled issue.
“Let it be known that the Chairman or anyone who holds a contrary opinion does so at a personal level. He is at best embarking on a frolic which reasonable people will consider dangerous. We are grieving but have not forgotten that Power MUST shift to the south. On this we stand”.
