Court order: APC sticks to elected delegates for presidential primaries

Adamu also indicated that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party had rejected the recommendation of the John Odigie Oyegun-led 7-man Presidential Screening Committee that 10 of the 23 presidential aspirants who appeared before  it be disqualified.

The party chair said all the 23 would now be allowed to test their popularity at the primary.

Oyegun, speaking during the presentation of his committee report on Friday, had said the panel pruned the number of aspirants from 23 to 13 after considering each aspirant’s “ability to lead, your background, your experience, your understanding of the Nigerian situation, your ideas as to how issues, difficulties, problems and the rest can be addressed and how the country can be moved forward became a principal consideration.”

But The Nation gathered that soon after the presentation of the report, powerful individuals and interest groups began piling pressure on the NWC to throw the ticket open to all the 23 aspirants.

Explaining the twist, Adamu said: “I want to say very clearly that no aspirant has been disqualified. It’s like sitting an exam. Even if you pass there is grading from first class to ordinary pass.

“So no aspirant was disqualified. Incidentally the president has invited all of them to a dinner today (last night).”

In a separate interview on the matter, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Barrister Felix Morka, said the Oyegun panel report was not binding on the NWC.

His words: “The screening panel only made recommendations to us to prune down our list. But that isn’t binding on us. We gave them an assignment and they have delivered. We would now sit down and take a position on what they submitted to us.

“The party had not disqualified anybody. Or have you heard from the party that any of the aspirants was disqualified?” (The Nation)