The move to prune down the list of presidential aspirants to five may have collapsed on Tuesday, ahead of voting by delegates.
Nasarawa Governor and Chairman of Media and Publicity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) convention, Abdullahi Sule, dropped the hint at the Eagles Square, venue of the Convention.
Speaking with journalists, the Nasarawa State Governor said certain aspirants have kicked against the list of five submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari.
He noted that in deference to the provisions of the Electoral Act Amendment 2022, all the aspirants may have to test their popularity at the ballot once one or two refused to submit to the consensus arrangement.
He said: “People are actually mistaken and forgetting what the electoral act says. The governors have no power to reduce the number of aspirants, not even the party. According to section 84 subsection 9 to 10 of the act, it shows clearly that if one person says I am not going to withdraw, then, there is going to be an election.
“As far as we are concerned, we are ready for election, and if all the 23 people that are there are screened by the party and allowed for election, we will conduct an election.
“So, the idea of pruning down or selecting a number of people that Governors do is just to reduce the number of people that we intend to support in order to reduce the tension. It is not necessary to force anybody actually to step down.
“The number of people that we will be supporting has not been pruned down to three, it is still five.
“Sometimes you don’t always get what You want. I think Mr President definitely wanted consensus in order to reduce the rancour.
“However, the president is a democrat and if he tries to convince people and they do not agree, he tells them to go out on the field and do it.” Tribune Online checks revealed that Section 84(9) (10) and (11) of the Electoral Act 2022 reads in part:
“(9) A political party that adopts a consensus candidate shall secure the written consent of all cleared aspirant for the position, indicating their voluntary withdrawal from the race and their endorsement of the consensus candidate”.
“(10) Where a political party is unable to secure the written consent of all cleared aspirants for the purpose of a consensus candidate, it shall revert to the choice of direct or indirect primaries for the nomination of candidates for the aforesaid elective position.
“(11) A special convention or nomination congress shall be held to ratify the choice of consensus candidates at designated centers at the National, State, Senatorial, Federal and State Constituencies, as the case may be.”
Further checks revealed that Kogi State Governor and presidential aspirant, Yahaya Bello has since kicked against the pronouncement of other 13 governors from the Northern region which recommended that the presidential candidate of the APC must come from the Southern part of the country.
Some of the aspirants from the southeast region have equally rejected the pruning of aspirants to five.
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