The leadership of the All Progressives Congress has bowed to the position of governors elected on the party’s platform on the mode of primaries for the 2019 elections.
The leadership of the party, under its National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, had directed that direct mode of primaries be adopted at all levels to produce the candidates for next year’s general election.
However, after a meeting of the governors elected on the platform of the party and Oshiomhole on Wednesday night, the national chairman of the APC and the members of the Progressives Governors Forum confirmed a change in position.
The Chairman of the PGF and Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, and Oshiomhole confirmed a change in position on the mode of primaries.
Okorocha said the meeting discussed the mode of primaries to be adopted to pick the party’s candidates for all elective offices for the 2019 general elections.
He, however, said that most of the APC-controlled states had resolved to adopt indirect primaries to pick the party’s candidates, assuring that all aspirants would be given equal opportunity.
He said: “We have adopted both direct and indirect primaries and most of the states are going for indirect primaries, but for the President, it is going to be direct primaries.
“We just held a meeting with the party’s National Chairman and we have resolved that in support of the party, 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.”
Okorocha assured that both the Progressive Governors Forum and the APC National Working Committee were working to ensure victory for the party in the 2019 general elections.
Also speaking, Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna State explained that it was not possible for all the party members to agree on a particular mode of primaries.
El-Rufai said there would always be some that would disagree, but that the decision of the party’s National Executive Committee was that if majority of the State Executive Committee members decided on any mode of primaries, they should go head as it would not matter if one or two members disagreed.
El-Rufai said: “And in Kaduna State, where I am the Governor by the grace of God, the majority of the State Executive Committee members decided on indirect primaries.
“If one or two members don’t agree, that’s off.
“That is not the decision of NEC.”
Oshiomhole said: “We have a tradition as a progressive party to submit ourselves to the dictates of our party and we believe in internal democracy because we are democrats and democracy must begin from within the house before we can do it outside.
“All of us, Governors, National Working Committee and even the President agreed that this is the way to go and that is what we are going to do.”
Speaking on the alleged crises in the Lagos State chapter of the party between Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Oshiomhole said the state was at peace.
He added: “I think our party in Lagos is at peace.
“There are conversations going on at the ward level across the 8,500 wards or thereabout and across the country.
“Conversations are going on within the APC family, conversations are going on in each of the 774 Local Governments and across the country.
“Our party members are negotiating, they are persuading, they are doing compromises, and they are competing, because we are progressing.”
He maintained that across the 36 states of the federation and at the federal level, activities in the APC were at their peak.
Trending
- PDP Caucus extends Damagum’s tenure as acting Chairman
- Lagos reacts to allegation of Ministry’s refusal to shelter minor forced to have abortions
- AltBank, Sterling One Foundation, Lagos Foodbank combat hunger, champion education
- Nigerian professors jailed in Cameroon petition House of Reps
- Stanbic IBTC seeks way to maximise Nigeria’s energy potentials
- MOSOP speaks on Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway
- Ondo 2024: Two nabbed for allegedly printing fake membership cards
- Army detains soldiers over cable theft at Dangote refinery