The All Progressives Congress (APC) recently announced the disqualification of 10 presidential aspirants under the party’s platform from its primaries which has been scheduled for next week.
The candidates were screened out by the Chairman of the Presidential Screening Committee, John Odigie-Oyegun, during the submission of the committee’s report.
Odigie-Oyegun stated that the committee`s report was in two aspects; the basic constitutional qualification to aspire to be a president of the country, and the ability to lead and background of the aspirant
What the APC is saying
Submitting the report of the 7-man committee to the party`s National Chairman Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, Odigie-Oyegun said: “Our respected national chairman and other distinguished members of the National Working Committee (NWC), it is our pleasure to be here with you today to present our report to you.
“We had the privilege of being inaugurated by you on May 30, and we immediately started work same day, after a brief meeting.
“All the aspirants were engaged on the issue of consensus and it was a pleasant surprise that 98 to 99 per cent of them agreed that the party is supreme, that whatever it finally decides with proper consultations, would likely be accepted.
“Though one aspirant said that; yes I will accept consensus so long as it is settled on me.
“First, we had 23 presidential aspirants that we interacted with and my first comment is that we are indeed a very luck party.”
On the screening process, he revealed the report was in two aspects; the basic constitutional qualification to aspire to be a president of the country, and the ability to lead and background of the aspirant.
He added that though 23 presidential aspirants presented themselves for screening, there were other prominent Nigerians within and outside the country that applied but could not proceed with their applications.
He said the quality of the aspirants was unquestionable, adding that the committee was surprised at the active participation of youthful members of the party.
“All the aspirants had the constitutional basic requirements and were qualified in that regard, because it was basic and simple,” he said, adding that the APC is “a governing party, and we are keying on continuing the process and replacing at the proper time, our president with yet another member of the party,”
He added that for this reason, the ability of the aspirants to lead, their background, experience and understanding of the Nigerian situation became critical, citing how difficult issues and problems could be addressed and how they could move the country forward also became a critical consideration at the screening.
“I don’t want to read the names, I think we will leave that to you, but we have a short list which brought the number severely down to 13.
“We could have cut it a little shorter, but we wanted deliberately all the younger elements to surface,” Odigie-Oyegun said.
In case you missed it
- The ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) presidential screening committee had announced the disqualification of 10 presidential aspirants under the party’s platform from its primaries which has been scheduled for next week.
- This leaves a total number of 13 out of the initially screened 23 aspirants cleared to contest during the June 6 to June 8, 2022, presidential primaries.
