NASS leadership election: NANS storms APC headquarters, oppose open ballot

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) on Thursday besieged the National Secretariat of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to protest alleged plot by the party’s National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, to impose candidates for the 9th National Assembly.

NANS Senate President, Gambo Mohammed, who addressed journalists during the peaceful protest, asked President Muhammadu Buhari to call the APC national chairman to order and demanded that a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting be convened to caution Oshiomhole.

Mohammed, who presenting an eight-paragraph protest letter to a representative of APC National Chairman, said the students were interested in politics because human beings are political animals as the 2019 general elections suggested that youths represented a greater percentage of registered voters in the country.

The placard-carrying protesters, which also took a copy of the protest letter to Lagos House in Asokoro for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, said that federal character principle suggested that no part of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria should be marginalised especially with regards to principal positions of the National Assembly.

Part of the protest letter read, “The leadership of the Senate NANS, acting closely with the Coalition of Youths Organization, having met and thoroughly examined the underlying dynamics in the election of the 9th National Assembly, and arising from a critical stakeholders meeting where it deliberated on matters arising at the National Assembly, have resolved that our lives begin to end the day we keep mute on the things that matter to us.

“History has it that the imposition of candidates was a key factor that destroyed the PDP, thus NANS Senate hereby cautions the leadership of APC to thread carefully on the imposition of sponsored candidates as this negatively impact their ratings and public image, while threatening the coherence of the 9th National Assembly.

“Having zoned the Senate presidency to the North East, in clear accordance with the preamble of the APC constitution, the best practice is to allow all inherently qualified members thereto to participate in the election. NANS Senate is well aware of the inherent imposition which holds sway at party levels, but is of the position that party politics imposition is not superior to what is constitutionally established.