Governors under the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the National Working Committee (NWC) have pruned down the number of its presidential aspirants for the party’s primaries to 5 following intense consultation and deliberations as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
They recommended Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, its National leader Bola Tinubu, immediate past Transportation Minister, Rotimi Ameachi, Governors Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) as possible consensus candidates.
This was made known by the Governor of Plateau State and Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Simon Lalong, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, on Tuesday morning, saying the APC is looking at the possibility of a consensus candidate.
What the Governor of Plateau State is saying
- Lalong stated, “From our own recommendations, as of this morning, we recommended five people. In alphabetical order, we said Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, John Kayode Fayemi, David Umahi and Professor Yemi Osinbajo. Those are the ones we made recommendations and we said we should put them forward.
- “Consensus is possible. Right from yesterday up till today, we have been doing consultations like Mr President said, ‘I give you the opportunity, work on it.
- “The governors and the National Working Committee will continue on that consensus. As of yesterday, we were able to even reduce, made recommendations of about five persons, from 23 to recommendations of about 13 aspirants without disqualifying anybody.
- “Within that 13 aspirants that were graded by the Screening Committee, we now looked at it and then recommended, that was jointly done by the Progressive governors and members of the National Working Committee, reducing it to five.”
The comments by Lalong is coming a day after the 13 Northern APC governors and most members of the NWC insisted the next presidential candidate of the party should come from the southern part of the country.
Lawan, Bello, Okorocha, others’ ambitions in jeopardy
This decision and recommendation of these organs of the party greatly reduced the chances of the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who the National Chairman of the party, Senator Adamu Abdullahi, reportedly chose as his preferred consensus candidate.
Other aspirants that were thrown off include Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Chief Emeka Nwajiuba, Rochas Okorocha, among others.
However, Lalong said aspirants among the initial 23, who are displeased with the decision could still contest the primaries.