The long-awaited presidential primaries for Nigeria’s ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC) has finally come as delegates go to the polls to decide the party’s presidential flag bearer. The journey has been quite a rough ride defined by plots, scheming and personal agendas alongside the many postponements of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC). Matters arising over the last few weeks include consensus candidacy, zoning presidency to the southern region of the country, claims to the presidency ticket, and much more.
Major highlights
- APC sold its nomination and expression of interest forms to 28 presidential aspirants for a price of N100 million. Of the 28 presidential aspirants, the screening committee examined 23 candidates, while the remaining 5 neither submitted the forms nor showed up for the screening exercise.
- According to the chairman of the party’s presidential screening committee, John Oyegun, 10 of the 23 candidates were disqualified, while the other 13 candidates would compete for the party’s presidential ticket. However, the National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu, countered the claim, stating that there were no disqualified candidates.
- The Northern APC Governors had, over the weekend, urged the northern presidential aspirants to step down as power in their opinion should return to their southern counterparts. The Governors also asked the President to pick his successor from the southern region of the country.
- President Muhammadu Buhari has also called on the aspiring candidates to adopt consensus election during the National convention to pick the party’s presidential flag bearer.
What you should know
- The APC has 2,340 delegates lined up to cast their votes in this year’s presidential primaries if the aspirants do not accept the consensus model of primaries.
- APC generated N16.47 billion from the sales of nomination and expression forms from 28 presidential aspirants, 133 gubernatorial candidates, and 351 Senatorial candidates.
- APC’s presidential primaries would be held from June 6th through 8th 2022.
- The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) extended the deadline for political parties in Nigeria to conduct primaries for the upcoming 2023 general elections until June 9th 2022.