The All Progressives Congress (APC) has identified compelling reasons as being responsible for the delay in fixing dates for party primaries as anticipated by aspirants and their supporters.
National Organizing Secretary of the party, Dr. Sulaiman Muhammad Argungu, who disclosed this said based on benefit of hindsight, INEC is anticipating the possibility of federal and state legislators being among those whom President Bola Tinubu may chose to appoint as Nigeria’s ambassadors to various countries.
He noted: “They (INEC) are working towards compiling comprehensive lists but they think that they have to pause a while and wait for the appointment of ambassadors; they expect that some current elected officials may become part of the list of new ambassadors.
“They won’t want to do by-election today, only to discover tomorrow that there is a host of vacant seats to be filled once again..
“They are just taking their time to ensure that they put things together comprehensively for all these by-elections; anytime arrangements are concluded, they will make nationwide announcement of the timetable to enable all the political parties to comply and APC will make public announcement for all its arrangements.”
Argungu further said it was mere mischief for anyone to speculate that APC could be selling nomination forms secretly to selected aspirants, stressing that such thing is completely impossible.
“Sell forms? To whom? When we are ready to sell nomination forms, it will be in the public domain; we will make the sale of forms known to all and as usual, it shall be open to any aspirant within the party who wants to participate in the primaries.
“We will sell forms to everyone who is a party member and who expresses interest in participating in the primaries towards electing candidates for the vacant seats.
“No date has been fixed for elections and no nomination forms are being sold yet in Surulere or and other constituency,” he said.
