Governors in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) said yesterday that states would exercise their rights to conduct indirect primaries in selecting the party’s candidates for the 2019 general elections.

This is in reaction to the statement of the party’s acting publicity secretary, Yekini Nabena, saying that all the party’s candidates would be picked through a direct primaries method, which contradicted an earlier report that says states should determine the mode of their primaries.

There is a deep division in the party between those who favour direct primaries, headed by its national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and most of the governors who prefer indirect primaries.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party on Thursday reportedly attempted to resolve the division by directing for direct primaries in selecting the presidential candidate and giving states a leeway to decide their own mode of primaries.

This was countered by the acting secretary’s statement on Friday, which in turn prompted reaction from those opposed to direct primaries who insist that NEC’s original position was unchanged.

One of the APC governors who is also a member of the party’s NEC told Daily Trust on Sunday yesterday that, “The statement purportedly issued on Friday evening by the party’s acting national publicity secretary in order to ‘clarify’ the decision of the party’s NEC as announced on Thursday by the governors of Plateau and Kogi States was an exercise in futility. It was the national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole; the APC deputy chairman, North, Senator Lawal Shu’aibu; and the deputy chairman, South, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, that called the acting publicity secretary and told him to go and make the so-called clarification in order to please their political mentor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. All these officials were members of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Also clearing the air on the decision of the party’s NEC on the mode of primaries to be adopted, the APC’s national secretary, Alhaji Mai Mala Buni, said it was agreed that leadership of the party in states could decide on whether it desires direct or indirect primaries in their domains.

Mala Buni told the BBC Hausa Service yesterday morning that the decision of the party’s NEC on direct primaries only affects that of the presidential primary but that states were at liberty to choose the kind of primaries they want to adopt, based on their peculiarities.

There has been confusion over the method of primary adopted by the party.

Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong said immediately after the NEC meeting that they adopted direct method for presidential primary, other primaries would be conducted via indirect method.

However, the party’s spokesman, Yakeni Nabeni, said the decision of the NEC was that all primaries would be conducted through direct method.

But in the interview aired in the morning, Mala Buni said the party considered the cost of conducting every primary through direct method and other logistics; hence states were allowed to adopt indirect or consensus method.
But APC’s acting spokesperson yesterday insisted that it was in the powers of the party to decide the primaries method to be conducted and not the governors.

Nabena told Daily Trust on Sunday yesterday by phone that everybody would conduct direct primaries.

When asked about what would happen in states that have expressed preference for indirect primaries, which could put the chances of federal lawmakers who might be favourably disposed to direct primaries at risk, he said, “It is very clear now in our statement. Everybody will go for direct primaries. The party is the one that will set the rules, not the state governors. It is only a situation whereby we have logistic problem that the State Executive Committee, with critical stakeholders, and the critical stakeholders are those aspirants, will meet and everybody will sign.

•Excerpted from a Daily Trust report