The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Abdullahi Adamu, has ruled out the adoption of consensus as a modality to pick the party’s presidential flag bearer for next year’s election.
The party presently has 28 aspirants jostling to represent the party in the 2023 presidential election.
Top among them are Vice president Yemi Osinbajo, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Rotimi Amaechi, Governors Dave Umahi, Kayode Fayemi and Yahaya Bello, of Ebonyi, Ekiti and Kogi States respectively; Ogbonaya Onu, the immediate past Minister for Science and Technology, amongst others.
While some of the aspirants have been traversing the country, in the last two months, trying to convince the delegates on the need to pick them as APC flag bearer, some presidential hopefuls have simply relaxed, with the hope that they will be picked on consensus.
Sources in the APC have informed the magazine that such aspirants are banking on President Muhammadu Buhari support to emerge as consensus candidate for the party.
“The way some of them are behaving seems they are awaiting the president to give a marching order to the party to pick them as the candidate. Obviously, they have failed, because nothing of such will happen, they can see that the party will not foist any candidate on the party,” a source in the party told the magazine on Thursday.
The source spoke on the back of suggestions that former President Goodluck Jonathan has been picked by some entrenched interests in the party to be the party’s candidate in 2023 “on President Buhari’s approval, not knowing that the party is bigger than a single individual,” the source said.
The former President had obtained the party’s nomination form for N100 million, but there are still doubts on whether he will contest or not. Jonathan is yet to officially dump the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, even though he has not attended the party’s meeting for sometime.
The meeting that the former President held with APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, a couple of weeks in Abuja, fuelled the rumour that the party is planning to adopt him as its candidate.
But speaking to journalists on Thursday, Adamu, who on his part, recently emerged as the chairman based on consensus, said nothing of such is being planned by the party. He said all the 28 aspirants will go through the primary slated for Sunday, May 29.
He said the best among the aspirants will emerge the APC candidate.
On whether the party has adopted consensus, Adamu said, “There is no truth in what you said. The reason is that the chairmanship seat is not the same as that of the tussle for the Presidency of the country. You can’t even compare the two of them. That question does not arise.
“However the party has laid down its rules and regulations for the aspirants. We would scrutinise all of them based on our guidelines to be sure we pick the right candidate for the party.
“You can’t stop a party stalwart from contesting election or aspiring for the Presidency. It is their rights and we are happy for them. There is nothing wrong for anybody aspiring for the exalted seat of the Presidency. It is God that decides who gets what.
“Once God makes up his mind and says this is who He wants, that is what we are praying for. We have 28 aspirants for the presidential ticket and everybody knows that all of them cannot get the ticket.
“If it is God’s wish, they all can even be president of the country one after the other. Ours is to ensure justice in the choice of who emerges candidate of the party. That does not mean we are perfect. But we pray we do the right thing.”
Meanwhile, the magazine learnt , from other APC sources that efforts are still ongoing to ensue that some aspirants dropped their ambitions.
One of such meetings was the one President Buhari had with APC governors on Wednesday, where the party failed to agree on the issue.
“We are still on the matter, we still have three days to the convention. We are hoping that all the various interests will come together on the matter,” a top APC source said.
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