2015 Presidential Ticket: APC in dilemma over Buhari, Atiku

The leaders of the All Progressives Congress, APC, have started appealing to the party's presidential aspirants in other to avert likely crisis that may trail its presidential primary scheduled to hold in a few weeks from now.

As part of the moves to ensure peace in the party, the leadership is said to be pursuing the option of a consensus candidate.

The race for the ticket appears to be keenest between the former Head of State, Maj.-Gen.Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. But analysts believe that the Kano State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Kwakwanso's interest in the party ticket cannot be ignored.

It was gathered that the APC National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, and national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, had separately held at least two informal meetings with Buhari and Atiku.

It was also learnt that the two leaders had made personal appeals to the presidential aspirants to consider "the greater good" of the party.

However, none of the two aspirants has shown readiness to back out of the move to get the party's presidential ticket.

A chieftain of the APC in the South-East, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, confirmed that the party was aware that there would be challenges from the early stage, especially in the build-up to the primary, adding that the party had been holding meetings over the issue.

He said, "Many aspirants have expressed interest in the APC presidential ticket and all of them are qualified, so the party is considering whether to go for direct or indirect primary. But some of us are of the opinion that consensus may be better.

"But the likely challenge is that the person with a fat pocket may win the primary, considering the fact that he can just sit somewhere and control the situation of things."

Meanwhile. the APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has expressed anger on insinuation of a likely difficulty in resolving the issue of three strong candidates seeking the party's presidential ticket.

He said, "The primary is yet to hold. We should leave them till when the time comes. As long as the process is transparent, the party will resolve the matter."