By Lanre Oloyede
Ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is secretly screening its presidential aspirants today Monday May 30, 2022, Nigerian Pilot has gathered.
This came barely 48 hours after the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, conducted its presidential primary to determine its flagbearer for the 2023 elections.
The screening, according to findings by Nigerian Pilot, is taking place at the Transcorp Hilton hotel Abuja.
The party had fixed its presidential convention for Sunday May 29 to Monday 30 before postponing it to June 6 – 8 following the extension of the deadline for submission of candidates names by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The party is yet to communicate any information pertaining to the screening exercise as officials of the party have refused to speak to journalists.
What is also unclear is the composition of the screening Committee and when it was set up.
It was gathered that about ten out of the 23 aspirants are expected to be screened today.
A member of the National Working Committee, NWC, Mallam Salihu Mohd Lukman, on Saturday accused the national Chairman Abdullahi Adamu of running an autocratic and unilateral leadership.
Lukman knocked Adamu for failing to set up the screening committee a few hours to the presidential primary.
“Partly because of that, for instance, although the National Convention to elect the party’s Presidential Candidate is scheduled for May 29 and 30, less than 48 hours, we are yet to have a Convention Committee in place.
“In fact, the Presidential aspirants are yet to be screened. The official explanation is that you are awaiting final consultation with President Buhari. At the risk of sounding agitated, this is unfair to President Buhari because to the best of my understanding it is an attempt to use the President’s name to give excuses for failure, if it happens, which should not be the case.
“As NWC and as our leader being the National Chairman, I want to appeal to you on the need for new initiatives in managing the party. At the rate we are going, we are walking back to the old spot of over centralised implementation of party decisions around the National Chairman. Increasingly, critical challenges of managing important tasks such as organising National Convention to produce Presidential Candidate of the party is being handled informally. This should not be so, and everything must be done to correct that,” Lukman averred.
