Should Tinubu camp be worried as Adamu refuses to rule out any mode of primaries?

The newly sworn-in national chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu has refused to rule out the possibility of APC presidential candidate arriving through consensus.

According to the Daily Trust, Senator Adamu, who spoke to reporters after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari said the party’s constitution has direct, indirect and consensus mode of primaries to choose from to select its 2023 presidential candidate.

He said the party is open to adopting any of the three and would make a decision in due time.

Adamu’s comments is coming against the backdrop of reports that supporters of former Lagos Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is one of the leading presidential aspirants, are not comfortable with the consensus option of selecting the party’s presidential candidate. They fear that some Cabals in the presidency who are trying to push for consensus are doing so to edge out Tinubu from the race for the party’s presidential ticket. Consequently, they are calling for the leadership of the party to jettison the consensus option and go for either direct or indirect primaries.

As the APC national chairman, I think the Senator Adamu simply gave the position of the party’s constitution to reporters on the issue of nominating presidential candidate for the party. The party will decide which mode of primaries it will adopt when the time comes. Since APC came to power in 2015, the party has never adopted consensus to nominate its presidential candidate. In 2015, the party used direct primary. Meanwhile, in 2019, the party still used direct primary despite the fact that President Buhari was the sole candidate who purchased nomination forms.

Considering this, I think Tinubu’s supporters should not be worried about the possibility of using consensus to select the APC presidential candidate in 2023.