The All Progressives Congress (APC) has ruled out the possibility of granting automatic ticket for serving governors and the president at its forthcoming primaries ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Speaking to news men on the outcome of the party’s 6th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting today, Thursday in Abuja, the Plateau State governor, Simeon Lalong said: “we didn’t discuss the issue of automatic ticket, but we discussed that yes, patriotic and loyal party members should be rewarded but not necessarily with automatic ticket.”
He said that the party had agreed to adopt direct primary election to pick its candidate for the Presidential election, saying that the Constitution of the party “provides for either direct, indirect or consensus, but for the presidential election, we all agreed that we will adopt direct primaries.
“Also, a recommendation was made by the National Working Committee (NWC) that states should adopt the indirect mode, but there may be situations that this might be difficult in the states, looking at their peculiarities.
”But the general option is that we go in for indirect option but any state that has a problem and will want to deviate is at liberty to write, following the normal process, with a resolution from the State Executive to the National Executive.”
Governor Lalong said that meeting looked into the issue of N21 million Expression of Interest and Nomination Form fee for governorship aspirants in the party as proposed by the NWC, adding that the cost was eventually left to the party’s NWC to come up with “a reasonable figure.”
