Commotion At APC Secretariat As Protesters Threaten Adamu Over Substitution Of Candidates

As the deadline for the submission of candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) expires today, trouble almost engulfed the national secretariat of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, over the alleged substitution of candidates.

Aggrieved candidates from Kogi, Enugu, Abia and Imo states besieged the party secretariat to register their anger with the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC) over the development.

Heavily armed security personnel had to hurriedly ferry Adamu away from the party secretariat to avoid an unsavoury experience in the hands of aggrieved candidates and their supporters.

Scores of supporters of some of the candidates, who attempted to force their way into the premises of the party secretariat chanted war songs to register their displeasure over the development.

Ejike Okoli, speaking on behalf of four House of Representatives aspirants, who won primaries in Enugu State, alleged that they were denied the opportunity to fill the INEC forms that would make them eligible to contest the 2023 poll.

He alleged: “We were invited through an SMS to come to Abuja to collect and fill INEC forms only to be given the withdrawal forms, which we rejected. And they have since refused to give us the INEC forms.”

He further alleged that the party leadership had perfected plans to substitute their names with their favoured aspirants for inexplicable reasons.

One of the aggrieved supporters of an aspirant from Kogi State alleged that the ticket of their principal, who won a House of Representatives race, had been offered to another person.

“We don’t expect this in the party at this critical time. We thought we will never hear of this kind of illegality but it is happening at the party. How can somebody emerge winner at the primary only to be denied the ticket of the party?”

House of Representative’s deputy whip, Nkiruka Onyejoicha and the House spokesperson, Mr Benjamin Kalu, were among a handful of National Assembly members sighted at the party secretariat apparently in relation to their eligibility to seek reelection on the party’s ticket.

While the youths were threatening that Adamu would not get out of the secretariat, the security operatives rushed and locked the entrance gate.

Following the development, security operatives pushed journalists out of the secretariat.

However, they (journalists) were later asked to identify themselves for security reasons before they were allowed to settle down.