National convention: Protest rocks APC nat’l secretariat over candidates ‘imposition’

Some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday stormed the national secretariat of the party in Abuja to protest against what they called alleged moves by some party bigwigs to impose National Working Committee (NWC) members on them at the March 26 national convention.

The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions, such as, “We won’t allow our party into the hands of strangers; we hate imposition; imposition will not do us any good,” among others. 

• FG threatens to prosecute Nigerians bribing immigration officers for passports
• Amidst fuel scarcity, Nigerians decry widespread power outage

President Muhammadu Buhari is said to have endorsed a former governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, for the party’s national chairmanship ahead of the convention.  

The spokesman of the protesters, Yunusa Ahmadu Yusuf, said the top echelon of the party should desist from any form of imposition ahead of the convention.   

“We are saying that the party should not impose any candidate on the people. Party members and the delegates should be allowed to choose who will lead them at the national level,” he said.

Another leader of the protesters, Muktar Akoshi said, “Yes, everybody will give Mr President the respect he deserves and abide by anything he says, but we are sure he also knows the definition of democracy. He knows that it is only good to allow people choose who governs them.”