The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rescheduled its presidential primary special convention from May 29-30 to June 6-8.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, made the announcement in an Abuja statement on Saturday.
“The APC hereby postpones its Special Convention for Presidential Primary from May 29 to 30 to Monday, June 6 to Wednesday, June 8, 2022,” he stated, referring to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s extension of the deadline for political parties to submit a list of candidates.
On Friday, INEC agreed to revise the timeframe for political party primaries in the calendar and schedule of activities for the 2023 general elections, as requested by the APC and several political parties.
The parties had requested a 37- to 60-day extension of the primary and candidate nomination deadlines.
The request was approved, according to Festus Okoye, chairman of the commission’s Information and Voter Education Committee, in respect to pending political party primaries alone, without prejudice to those that have already taken place.
“The commission has decided to grant the political parties’ request because the six-day timeframe does not clash with the next scheduled activity, which is the submission of a list of nominated candidates, or any of the succeeding timelines, which are all strictly adhered to.”
“However, this request is allowed only in relation to pending primaries, not to those that have already been finished by political parties.”
Mr Okoye had stated, “The panel will not oversee already concluded primaries.”
The biggest opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, was first taken aback by INEC’s decision, and at an emergency meeting on Friday night, it pondered changing its own presidential primary to avoid the suspected ‘INEC-APC collaboration.’
The party, on the other hand, decided against a postponement, citing the ruling party’s lack of flexibility.
