President Bola Tinubu has directed the 32 state governors on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress to ensure the conduct of free, fair and rancour-free primaries ahead of the 2027 general elections.
President Tinubu gave the order at a closed-door meeting with the governors on Thursday, April 23, at the Presidential Villa.
According to him, this was to be in sync with the provisions of the Electoral Act and part of efforts to preserve the unity and cohesion of the ruling party.
Addressing newsmen after a closed-door meeting with the President at the State House, Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and his Niger State counterpart, Mohammed Bago, said deliberations focused on measures to forge a stronger and more cohesive party in the aftermath of the party elections.
They said the president reaffirmed his support for the party’s decision to allow states to adopt either consensus or direct primaries in line with the Electoral Act.
AbdulRazak, also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), said “We came to thank the President for his magnanimity and his support to the governors and for our party, The APC, he gave us a matching order on what to do for him also to have given and ceded his executive power to the governors to go ahead and conduct primaries based On the Electoral Act, either through consensus or direct primaries.”
Bago said the President reaffirmed his support and gave approval for the primaries to proceed, noting that the timetable for the exercise had been released.
“So he’s retracted his support for our decision, and he has given us a go-ahead. To go ahead. Meeting with Mr President. I met with Mr President. The timetable for the primaries has been released.
“We’ve discussed the process moving forward so that there’ll be free and fair elections, no rancour at the end of the process, the party should be stronger, stronger than ever heading towards the election”.
Governors at the meeting included Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), Hope Uzodimma (Imo), Inuwa Yahaya (Gombe), Prof. Babagana Zulum (Borno), Hyacinth Alia (Benue), Biodun Oyebanji (Ekiti), Peter Mbah (Enugu), and AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq (Kwara), while some states were represented by deputy governors.
