In Kaduna, the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the party rose from its Thursday meeting, adopting the indirect primaries, but its only Senator from the state, Shehu Sani, alongside some other stakeholders kicked against indirect primaries.
Senator Shehu Sani though, for the first time since his suspension by the party in 2016, was in attendance at the party’s SEC meeting, where the indirect primaries mode was adopted. He however quickly addressed the media to register his disagreement to the party’s decision.
While briefing newsmen shortly after the SEC meeting, the state chairman of the party, Air Cdre Emmanuel K. Jekada, had hinged the party’s rejection of direct primaries on what it called non-applicability of the election mode in Kaduna State. He stated categorically that, “Direct Primary method is not applicable in Kaduna State.”
According to Jekada, “The Kaduna State Executive Committee (SEC) in line with the directives of the National Executive Committee (NEC), sat today, Thursday, 6 September, 2018 and adopted “Indirect Primary” as the mode of conduct of the party primary elections in Kaduna State.
“The ‘Direct Primary method’ is not applicable in the state due to the following reasons: Absence of a comprehensive register of party members; the APC Kaduna party leadership has made spirited attempts to acquire a comprehensive database of party members from the party’s National Headquarters but to no avail. Without a comprehensive membership register, any direct primaries may be disrupted by non-members, including individuals from other parties who may come up with fake membership cards to cause confusion in the process.
“Experience of Direct Primaries from the recently concluded primary elections for councillorship in the state, where the party adopted direct primaries to select its candidates, was marred by significant disruption and controversy and over stretched the security agencies. Using this mode for the upcoming primary elections would definitely not produce the desired results and its credibility may be called to question.
“The direct primary method would result in significant logistic challenges for the party; with party membership running into hundreds of thousands in the state, printing of ballots, deployment of election materials, accreditation, voting, collation and declaration of results would be very expensive with financial cost surpassing a billion naira in Kaduna alone. These are costs that the party may not be able to shoulder in view of the fact that it was not envisaged, and no budget provision has been made for it.
“In order to deepen and broaden the democratic practice, the party looks forward to the adoption of direct primaries in future elections at which time the limitations listed above would have been resolved.
“Therefore, in recognition of 2a-c above, the State Executive Committee adopted the ‘Indirect’ mode of primaries for nomination of candidates in the 2019 elections in the state. This decision will accordingly be communicated to the National Executive Committee of the party as required,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Senator Shehu Sani and his predecessor in the Senate, General Mohammed Sani Saleh while addressing journalists at the NUJ secretariat after the SEC meeting said, the decision of the SEC is not final, as they, as aspirants, have equally submitted their position in favour of direct primaries to the national secretariat of the party.
According to Senator Sani, “The party has just concluded the state executive committee meeting at which they read out a resolution that they prefer the indirect method in the forthcoming primary elections. Well, that is the state’s position and not the final say; national headquarters required that every states executive committees must submit a written request signed by state’s executive committee members, critical stakeholders as well as aspirants to various offices in the state.
‘So far, out of these three categories of people, the state executive committee has taken its own stand; it is left for critical stakeholders and aspirants to state their own position on this matter. And as an aspirant to the office of senator for Kaduna Central Senatorial District, I do not agree to indirect method of conducting the primaries because of obvious reasons.
“One of the reasons is the manner in which the congresses were conducted. It was conducted in such a way that certain individuals were given the opportunity to select the entire executive members from every wards and LGA in the state. It was not free and fair so I don’t think I will be doing justice to myself, to subject myself to general election under that condition.
“The safest, fairest and best thing is for us to throw this thing open if you are not afraid of the people that you are aspiring to represent, subject yourself to election by them,” he said.
