The ruling All Progressives Congress APC is in a quandary over the fate of some of its senatorial candidates for the 2023 general elections.
The names of its high-profile candidates like Senate President Ahmad Lawan and former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, were, at the weekend, omitted by Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the list of candidates for federal legislative seats that it published across the constituencies.
Felix Morka, spokesman for the APC, was not immediately available for comments and he neither picked calls made to his known telephone line nor replied a text message sent to him by our correspondent
However, Sunday Vanguard gathered that the party, which is currently developing its ‘2023 General Election Plan’, is weighing options on how best to actualize the candidature of Lawan, Akpabio and others in similar capacity.
“The party has come up with a plan on how to prosecute next year’s general election. We did not envisage this challenge, but we are exploring all options to see how we can get the Senate President and others on the ballot.
“The Senate President has been very instrumental to the sustenance of democracy in the country and has helped to smoothen executive-legislature relationship. It will not do us any good not to have him back in the upper chamber”, said a party official who pleaded anonymity.
INEC had, at the weekend, released the list of candidates of political parties for federal legislative seats but omitted certain names especially of the APC extraction.
The commission said it could not publish names of people who emerged from primary elections which its officials did not monitor.