TheCable

Abdullahi Adamu, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has announced Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the consensus presidential candidate for the party.

Sulaiman Argungu, APC national organising secretary, confirmed the development on Monday while speaking with journalists.

According to him, Adamu announced the consensus decision during the meeting of the party’s national working committee (NWC), held on Monday in Abuja.

Argungu, however, maintained that the APC national chairman’s position is not that of the NWC.

“It’s just an information he gave us. All of us are entitled to our opinion. We are all democrats. This decision was never taken by the NWC, but an information given to the NWC,” he said.

Voting for the APC’s presidential candidate is scheduled for Tuesday.

However, the development comes after President Muhammadu Buhari held a meeting with APC governors from the northern region in Abuja.

Discussions at the meeting with the president, which held on Tuesday, included the decision of the northern governors asking for the APC presidential ticket to be zoned to the south.

There have been calls for the presidential ticket to be zoned to the southern region, but this has been met with counter reactions — including a protest by northern youth groups kicking against power shift.

Meanwhile, Buhari, at a meeting with presidential hopefuls on Saturday, asked them to “come up with a formidable” consensus candidate.

“I wish to remind you that our choice of flagbearer must be formidable, appealing to the electorate across the board and should command such ability to unify the country and capacity to address our critical challenges,” the president had said.