Joseph Bakare
The All Progressive Congress, APC, has confirmed offering president Muhammadu Buhari the sole candidate for the upcoming 2019 presidential election.
The party’s national secretary Maimala Buni Tuesday affirmed that Buhari is the sole candidate of the party for 2019 Presidential election, but further urged interested party members in the presidential position to feel free to pick the nomination form even though the National Executive Council, NEC, of the party has already endorsed the President.
He stated this while fielding questions from State House correspondents after a group under the auspices of National Consolidation Ambassadors Network, NCAN, presented Expression of Interest, Nomination Form for the 2019 election to the President at the New Banquet Hall Presidential Villa Abuja.
The APC National Secretary flanked by the Director-General of Buhari’s Campaign Committee and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and Chairman Buhari’s Campaign Media Committee, Festus Keyamo, SAN, said the NEC of the party had since endorsed the President and by extension, all members of the party have done so.
He said, “Once the National executive Committee NEC of the party passes a vote of confidence on the President, that President stands accepted because the NEC is the highest organ of the party and it met to take the decision, where every interest was represented so the National Executive Committee of the APC has passed a vote of confidence on our President and that means every APC member has endorsed him.”
The APC Secretary said Nigeria’s case was not exceptional because the same scenario obtains in advanced democracies. “In advance democracy, ones the NEC of a party passes vote of confidence on the President, nobody contest against the President. The President has been accepted.”
He said that the President will be given the choice of first refusal and that as he had accepted the nomination form it meant that he was the party’s candidate in next year’s elections.