APC Presidential Primaries: Why Scheduled Date Shaky

There are speculations that the All Progressives Congress, (APC) 2023 presidential primary election may not hold again on the new date earlier scheduled.

Naija News understands that the ruling party’s bid to nominate its presidential candidate for the 2023 general election is giving party members concern at the moment as INEC’s deadline draws nearer.

APC had announced that its presidential primaries would hold between May 29 and 30.

Reports, however, emerging is suggesting that there are strong indications that the party may further alter the convention date.

It was gathered that the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC) is yet to constitute convention planning committees as of 5:00 pm yesterday, thereby raising suspicion of further adjustment.

This was the case in both 2014 and 2018 when Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State headed both conventions that produced President Buhari as the party’s candidate, Naija News recalls.

The Guardian has also observed in its reports that two days into the exercise, APC is yet to screen its presidential aspirants who have purchased and returned their expression of interest and nomination forms.

The development may not be unconnected with the party’s inability to settle for either the direct, indirect or consensus modes of selecting its standard-bearer.

More worries settled in the heart of party stakeholders and supporters seeing that even as at yesterday, President Muhammadu Buhari, members of the Governor Atiku Bagudu-led Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF) and the NWC have yet to come up with a definite position on how to resolve the issue relating to the selection of a presidential candidate.

It could be recalled that President Buhari had earlier in the week, met behind closed-door with APC governors, National Assembly leadership and the party’s NWC to arrive at a decision concerning the primary.

While details of the meeting remained sketchy, speculations are that the meeting was about exploring the possibility for a consensus presidential candidate for the party before the date for screening would be fixed.

But since then, the screening has remained a subject of speculation with pundits insinuating plans to have aspirants withdraw from the race for the yet-to-be known consensus candidate.

Another possible reason for not reaching a decision on the screening, according to observers, is to have the exercise close to the day of primary to constrain aggrieved aspirants from seeking redress.

An official of the party who spoke anonymously with The Guardian had hinted that the conduct of the convention is not feasible for Sunday, unlike before, when the facility (Eagle Square) would have been made ready a week before the event.

“It is obvious that the convention can’t hold on Sunday as planned. Who knows it might be on Monday or Tuesday. The most important thing is to meet the June 3 INEC deadline,” the media platform quoted the party official as saying.

Also, the absence of relevant stands, banners and structures at the Eagle Square venue of the convention on Thursday evening speaks more volumes about speculations on the postponement of the party’s presidential primaries.