The All Progressives Congress (APC) may be on a collision course with state governors over the governors’ choice of indirect primaries and consensus in choosing candidates for elective posts in their respective states ahead of the 2019 general election.
This is as it emerged that the party has pledged to cancel any indirect primary or consensus arrangement if any stakeholder or aspirant in the affected state protests against it.
The governors are believed to be opposed to the direct primary option preferred by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party.
As such, they have reportedly threatened to withdraw financial support for the direct primary preferred by the party.
To counter the governors’ moves, Vanguard reported, quoting an unnamed but highly-placed APC source, the party increased the cost of nomination forms for various posts to enable it organise direct primaries in any state without the state governor’s financial backing.
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The governors were said to have refused funding for direct primaries after their plea for indirect primaries and consensus were rebuffed by the party.
“Anywhere they do indirect or consensus, and one of the aspirants or any of the stakeholders complain, that exercise would be cancelled, and the national headquarters will send people to go and do direct primaries,” the senior APC source said.
The source while speaking on the party’s financial capacity to organise direct primaries in states said, “That is part of the reasons the prices of nomination forms are high because we want to raise money from the proceeds of the sale of the forms to fund the direct primaries.
“The governors, who were supposed to fund the direct primaries are the ones complaining. So, their strategy is to stop funding for the party as they are already saying that they don’t have money for it.”
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