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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Tension has enveloped the All Progressives Congress (APC) over failure to announce running mate to its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, few hours to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deadline.
The failure of the National Working Committee (NWC) to arrive at any name for Tinubu after several hours of meeting, equally contributed in heightening tension.
A member of the NWC told Daily Sun that they could not pick any name, saying instead, the ruling party submitted a pseudo name to INEC to beat today’s deadline.
“Yes, the national chairman actually visited our party’s presidential candidate on Thursday morning, as you rightly observed, before our meeting, but I can confirm to you that no serious decision about a running mate was taken during our meeting. However, I can confirm to you that we have to submit pseudo name to INEC to allow us do more consultations,” the NWC member from the South said.
Another party chieftain told Daily Sun that the PDP settling for a Muslim/Christian candidate also worsened the confusion in APC, saying they want to re-evaluate the initial Muslim-Muslim joint ticket arrangement.
“The truth is that if APC wants to retain the presidential seat, Muslim-Muslim joint ticket remains our best bet. However, with the PDP now opting for a Muslim/Christian joint ticket, we need to re-evaluate our initial arrangement. We have to do more consultations and appraisal of the option. And since it is not a decision that requires urgency, we have to submit a pseudo name to meet up the INEC deadline,” he said.
However, there was commotion at the national secretariat last night as group of youths from Kogi State stormed the premises to declare war on the National Chairman, Abdulahi Adamu.
The angry youths had demanded to see the chairman over allegations that he substituted the name of the House of Representatives candidate from the state with someone who did not participate in the primary.
They threatened to unleash terror should the national chairman fail to return name of the candidate who they claimed won the primary.
The battle-ready youths barricaded the entrance gate to the secretariat and rejected appeals from the security details at the gate until drastic intervention from the security attached to the national chairman dislodged them.
The security operatives had to order everybody out of the party premises before locking the entrance gate to whisk out Adamu through an emergency exit.
The headquarters of the ruling party has been a beehive of activities for members, aspirants and candidates visiting to lodge one form of complaint or the other.
