Critical stakeholders, former presidential aspirants and senators who lost out in the just-concluded primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC), have vowed to punish the party, ahead of the 2023 presidential elections.
They claimed Tinubu and Abdullahi Adamu, party’s national chairman, have isolated critical stakeholders of the party.
A northern ranking senator alleged that Adamu, who was supported by lawmakers when governors did not want him betrayed them during the primaries.
He said Adamu runs the party “like a sole administrator and paramount ruler” who does not accommodate superior views from members of the National Working Committee (NWC).
The lawmaker said the presidential candidate has refused to reach out to aggrieved aspirants who ran against him.
“As soon as the primaries were over, Tinubu visited all the key aspirants. Commitments were made that they’ll be involved before, during and after the elections.
“I attended one of the meetings where Tinubu told one of the former presidential aspirants that he will play an active role. That promise has turned out to be false.
“Tinubu has since gone ahead to announce the choice of his running mate without consulting any of them. The aspirants have also decided to ignore him.
“Tinubu and Adamu are busy organising events. They’re leaving out the real issue. They’re behaving as of they’ve won the elections. For them, aggrieved members and stakeholders can go to hell.
“They believe only governors and President Muhammadu will deliver votes for them. Unfortunately, many APC senators didn’t get return tickets and they’ve no stakes in the upcoming elections. They won’t take it serious. The President Buhari they’re banking on won’t campaign for anybody. Let’s see who will campaign for them at the grassroots level.”
The senator said ahead of the conduct of the 2023 presidential elections, the two leading political parties, APC and the opposition PDP, were fretting over the unpredictable demographics, occasioned by the surge in the popularity of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP).
Obi, former governor of Anambra State, was the running mate to Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 presidential elections. Until a few days to the conduct of the PDP presidential primaries in May, Obi was a leading aspirant on the platform of the party.
However, since his emergence as presidential candidate of the LP and following the announcement by the presidential candidate of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to run on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, the permutations have changed.
