The National Publicity Secretary of the main opposition political party in Nigerai, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in this exclusive interview revealed to BODE OLAGOKE why his party might not adopt direct primaries. The report:
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has ruled out speculation that its presidential aspirants would pay up to N27 million for nomination form to be able to participate at the party primary, saying its the party is yet to publish it guidelines which includes fees payable.
The party also said that it may consider re-adjusting its times table because of unforeseen circumstances like public holidays which encroached into the initial plans.
In an exclusive interview yesterday in Abuja, National Publicity Secretary of APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who wondered where people got the fees payable presidential aspirants and other offices from, said whatever guidelines approved by the party would be published.
“Look, as far as I am concern the party is yet to publish its guidelines and the guidelines also includes fees payable. I don’t believe that the party has finalise the fees payable as of today and so I don’t know where people get these figures from, ” he said
Speaking on reasons why the National Executive Council (NEC) prefer modified direct primaries, APC spokesman said, “Ideally, what the party wanted is a direct primary where delegates would be able to cast its votes, that was the most favour option at the National Working Committee level but the challenges of the direct primary was what led us to talk about modify direct primary.
“What are the challenges of open primary? One, as of today not everybody has the permanent card, what we had is temporary card, then, many people after our registration joined our party and they don’t even have temporary slip, so, how do you have a direct primary that will exclude those people? How do you have direct primary when there is no way you can identify a particular member? Secondly, we looked at the logistics of holding primaries of 8,000 wards all over Nigeria and it was enormous in term of cost, security implications and peace and order. Finally, what will happen in other areas where there are security challenges? Can we honestly have direct primaries there?
“Then, we now asked ourselves what is the next possible thing and that is to have a modify direct primaries, in which we are going to carry along as many elected officers as possible, we are trying t say that all ward executives, all local government executives, all state executives, now we came up with over three hundred thousand people because we have about eight thousand wards. If you have an average of about 25 people per ward, that is already over two hundred thousand people. So, we felt that with that system we are going to involve about three hundred thousand people and what is going to happen now is that let say week 1, we do North-central, week 2, we do South-south until it goes round, and this is what we submitted to the caucus and NEC which was approved, until somebody now came and said the electoral law says that all congresses must be conducted under one roof, this is where a dilemma arise, we can’t have three hundred people at Eagles Square, there would be chaos.
“So, NEC now threw it back to the NWC that in view of this statusorate constrain recommend something that is practicable, that is how we were pushed back, not even the issue of delegates we don’t have problem with delegates but we are looking for, is there a venue in Nigeria that can accommodate as many as, lets say 40, 000, or 25,000? Clearly, ward is not possible, so put local governments. There are 774 local government, each of them having minimum of twenty excos, it is not possible. We then say, in each local government, Chairman, Secretary, Woman leader and Youth leader making five people, and when you multiply that by eight hundred, that will give you four thousand, then, add four thousand to the regular seven thousand, we have eleven thousand. Then we go to state, there are 36 state, we said can we get five people from each state, this is an assignment we were given before I travelled. So it is not as if we are going backward, but what we want is direct primaries, in the absence of that how do we include as many people as possible, so that you don’t buy delegates and the party wil be able to take ownership of the outcome, this is what we are face with.”
When asked whether APC as a body may endorse a candidate before the primaries, Muhammed said, APC as a body would not endorse anybody but individual endorse might do.
“That is what I am saying, why not? Look, even small me, I have my choice of who I am going to support, don’t I have a choice? Or you think I wouldn’t have made up my mind before I get to the convention ground? Look, a lot of these things are decided before you go into convention ground, what is undemocratic is to have a sole candidate to the exclusion of others, for the party to proudly make a statement and say this is our sole candidate is undemocratic,” he said.
While reacting to rumours of fake APC delegates form already in circulation, Mohammed said, “What people don’t understand is that the party has the list of all the delegates. Delegates were appointed at the various congresses. It was delegates that came to vote at the national convention, but the party constitution says those who will vote to elect presidential flag bearer at convention are three from each local government, so already everybody knows who delegates are. But what we are trying to do is that those delegates might not probably representative enough, let us now enlarge it.”
