Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu on Friday said that the party has no regret fixing its presidential nomination form at N100 million.
Senator Adamu also said that no decision has been taken on the zone to produce the presidential candidate of the party for the 2023 election.
This comes as the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) led by Prof. Ango Abdullahi, has begun fresh moves to pressure the major political parties to throw their tickets open to all sections of the country, saying that “power shift arrangement is already dead and buried.”
The Party chairman stated this while briefing State House correspondents after presenting the APC governorship candidate for the Ekiti state, Abiodun Oyebanji to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Senator Adamu noted that the decision on which part of the country should produce the ruling party candidate was beyond him.
While stating that the APC was yet to decide the zone to produce its presidential candidate, he maintained: “I am today privileged to be the chairman of the party. The party is greater than me. The party has not made a decision and I cannot preempt what the party decision will be.”
Recall that the ruling party had swapped its national offices between North and South, leading to the emergence of Adamu from the North Central as the national chairman.
Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State had said just before the last national convention of the party that even though the APC had not decided on zoning the presidential ticket, the swapping of national offices was an indication of where its presidential candidate would come from.
On the high cost of Its nominations forms, Adamu said that the party has no regret whatsoever fixing it for N100 million for candidates seeking elective positions under the party.
He asserted that the APC was keen to discourage parties that have no chance of winning election to sponsor individuals to play the role of spoilers.
He said the party did its homework before arriving at the amount, adding that the cost had to be exorbitant because of the need to raise sufficient funds to conduct primaries and successfully prosecute coming elections.
Senator Adamu said that the party was aware that some of the aspirants are not serious contenders but mere jesters that have the intention to cause problems