The National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress on Saturday said there are plans to reconcile aggrieved aspirants after the tickets of the presidential, governorship, senatorial and House of Representatives are secured at the May 26 to 30 primaries.
This is even as the APC remained upbeat that the respective camp of the party’s aspirants remains calm ahead of the shadow poll.
The list of the aspirants who have so far submitted their nomination forms are the National Leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu; Vice President Yemi Osibanjo; former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; former Minister of Niger Delta Development, Sen. Godswill Akpabio; former Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu; former Imo State governor, Sen. Rochas Okorocha and former Ogun state governor, Sen. Ibikunle Amosu.
Others are Pastor Tunde Bakare, Cross River State governor, Prof. Ben Ayade; his Ebonyi State counterpart, Gov. Dave Umahi; Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba; former Senate President, Sen. Ken Nnamani; Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello; Jigawa Governor, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar and former Zamfara State governor, Sen. Ahmed Yerima.
Others on the list are Senator Ajayi Borroffice, the only female aspirant, Mrs Uju Kennedy Ohnenye; Pastor Nicholas Felix Nwagbo, former Speaker of Representative, Dimeji Bankole; Senate President, Dr. Ahmed Lawan, former Minister of Information, Chief Ikeobasi Mokelu and oil mogul, Mr Tein Jack Rich.
A confident APC National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has reassured stakeholders that no grieving aspirant will leave the party after the party’s primaries, which are expected to run from May 26 to 30.
Adamu, who was represented by his Special Assistant, Prof. Abdullahi Yau, disclosed this at a virtual town hall meeting organised under the aegis of the party Ward-to-ward Diaspora Network in collaboration with the APC Ward-to-ward Ambassadors on “Intra-Party democracy for the Emergence of Best Candidates.”
He said, “Directly, I want to tell you that after the primaries, none of the contestants of aspirants will leave the party. You can see unlike the other parties extending weight, in our party all our aspirants are calm. Everybody is going left and right, trying to win votes for themselves.”
According to him, all aspirants would be listened to by a high-power delegation of the committee if there’s a tangible reason why they are complaining after the party’s primaries.
“They will listen to you and provide for your needs. In this way, we can carry along everybody to the party,” he said.
“I can assure you this is the most interesting part; the number of people that are contesting and they are going to give everybody a playing level ground where you can exercise your right as a Nigerian to contest.
“And at the end of the exercise, just as what happened in the National convention, you see that everybody will be satisfied with whoever that emerges from the primaries.”
Speaking further, Adamu reassured, “Unless you have a process that is not well coordinated, a process that is marred by irregularities that’s when people will be aggrieved and would want to leave the party. If you’re allowed to exercise your right and you think there’s fairness in what’s going on in the party and you lose, I don’t think you would want to leave the party.
“I assure you even if we are going to have such a scenario, where we are going to have aggrieved members after the primaries, the Chairman and stakeholders of the party will ensure they reconcile everybody after the primaries.”
Copyright PUNCH.
