Special Correspondent, JULIUS ALABI, writes on the recent visit to Akure by APC presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar, and demand by party chieftains for transparency in its national convention.
The road to the 2015 general election is already as rough as the one that led to that of 2011, with nocturnal meetings and anonymous display of aspirants’ posters at strategic locations across the country. Politicians are strategising, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is working hard to put up a better show than was offered in 2011.
In business, the customers are treated as king because they hold the key to the success of failure of any enterprise. In societies where citizens elect their leaders, the electorate should be treated as kings. This situation presently applies where some presidential aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) go round the 36 states of the federation to seek the mandate of delegates ahead of the party’s national convention holding Wednrsday, December 10.
The stakes are going to be very high, considering those involved in the primaries. Perhaps, to avoid mistakes, concerned individuals are working at various levels to pick most credible candidates among the leading contestants that would be easily sellable to the electorate in the 2015 general elections.
The talk of the leading contestants of APC in the presidential race has started to gain ground in Ondo State among the party faithful. The visit to the state by one of the aspirants, Atiku Abubakar, may have affected some calculations among the delegates in the state. The former vice president, during the visit, commended the state delegates for receiving him. According to him, he had been counting the number of delegates that would support his ambition in every state he visited.
He said: “No one can impose candidate on the party. There is no way the party can adopt a consensus arrangement to pick its candidate.”
Atiku, who had been in an indoor meeting with the delegates for hours at a popular hotel in Akure, said he was very optimistic that APC would conduct free and fair primaries.
According to him, “no one can impose candidate on the party, and on the consensus issue, there is no way they can use consensus because we have grown beyond that. We are preparing for primaries. Who are the party leaders? We are the leaders of the party and there won’t be imposition.”
Ondo State Chairman of APC, Isaac Kekemeke, however, stated that the party was doing everything at its disposal to field credible candidates for all elections across the country, saying “I am confident that come 2015, APC will win massively and enthrone good governance”.
In his submission, the Secretary of Adult Contact Committee of APC in the state, Saka Ogunleye, noted that the party is doing everything to take over power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the national level, pointing out that PDP has been ruling the country for many years without impacting on the well-being of the electorate.
Taking a look at the voting system of this country, APC will not make any mistake in picking a presidential candidate from the minority side, he stressed. Politics, he added, is about votes by the people and number.
“If you are picking a presidential candidate from Bayelsa State of eight local governments, let me give you this analysis. In the whole lot of South South, the total votes there is just eight million, in South East its seven million, that is 15 million, and in the North East, we have about 12 million votes, the North Central 14 million, North West 10 million. That is to tell you that Jonathan will be facing more than 30 million votes. Come to the South West where you have the APC, about 14 million votes. Lagos State has about five million votes and the governor there is doing well. I don’t know under free and fair election, how Jonathan will survive 2015 elections.
“My party is prepared, we know how to get our votes and we are working very hard. That is why APC is a national party. It is not a South West party; it is not ACN. This is APC, a national party. We have Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku now. Two of them have signified their intention to run for presidential seat. It is not by giving a concession to a particular person or adopting one person as the candidate of the party. That is not democracy,” he further said.
