The All Progressives Congress (APC) will go ahead with the decision to allow only ad-hoc delegates to pick their presidential candidate in this week’s primary.
This is coming after opting to appeal the verdict of a Federal High Court in Kano that statutory delegates are qualified to participate in the shadow election.
All the 23 aspirants screened last week by the John Odigie-Oyegun led committee will also be allowed to contest for the ticket, APC National Chairman Abdullahi Adamu, said yesterday in an update ahead of the primary.
Adamu told reporters in Abuja yesterday categorically that statutory delegates remain excluded from the APC presidential primary.
“We have served notice of appeal. The matter is in court. At the convention, statutory delegates are excluded,” he said.
Adamu also indicated that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party had rejected the recommendation of the John Odigie Oyegun-led 7-man Presidential Screening Committee that 10 of the 23 presidential aspirants who appeared before it be disqualified.
Oyegun, speaking during the presentation of his committee report on Friday, had said the panel pruned the number of aspirants from 23 to 13 after considering each aspirant’s “ability to lead, your background, your experience, your understanding of the Nigerian situation, your ideas as to how issues, difficulties, problems and the rest can be addressed and how the country can be moved forward became a principal consideration.”
