Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said that the party does not regret selling its presidential nomination form at ₦100 million.
The National Chairman made this known on Friday while addressing State House Correspondents after presenting the Ekiti APC governorship candidate, Abiodun Oyebanji, to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Adamu explained that the move was to ward off unserious contenders and raise sufficient funds ahead of the upcoming elections. It is also to discourage parties that have no chance of winning elections from sponsoring individuals to play the role of spoilers, he added.
Aside from this, the APC leader also said the party has not yet taken a decision on the zoning of its presidential candidate for the 2023 election.
According to him, the decision on which part of the country should produce the party’s flagbearer was beyond him.
Adamu’s full statement
“We’ve been listening with rapt attention to the hues and cries from our lovers and adversaries. We have no regrets whatsoever.
“We did some homework; we know what it takes to go through primaries, go through the presidential campaign, go through election to be president; we know what it takes.
“We also do know that there are citizens who are qualified to contest, but who are not serious contenders, who will just want to take anything cheap by the roadside. Even the enormity of work that has to be done – and this work will be done with the money.
“And we don’t want to continue to beg, particularly in an election year. So we want to see that we are able to mobilise sufficient funds to support our efforts to win elections.
“The criticism, in some quarters, may be well-founded – I have no quarrel with that, but we wear the shoes for our party and we know where it pinches.”
