The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it would abide by its rules in the choice of the 2019 presidential candidate – downplaying giving an automatic ticket to President Muhammadu Buhari.

• Governor Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi disclosed this yesterday, in Abuja shortly after an expanded meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, its state governors and principal officers of the National Assembly.
• Asked whether the ticket was open to anyone or restricted to the President only, Abubakar, who was flanked by the Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, and the party’s spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, said the issue of endorsing the President or otherwise did not come up for discussion.
• He said the meeting did not also discuss the reported stance of some South-West leaders of the party to the effect that the ticket was open to anyone.
• “This meeting has not deliberated on that but the APC has a constitution and that is one of the items that was discussed; the amendment of the constitution of the APC in order to faithfully hold the constitution of the APC in line with democratic principles, and we will abide by the provisions of our constitution,” he stated.
• The party also threw its weight behind the President for asking the World Bank to shift its development focus to the North-Eastern part of the country.
• Bolaji Abdullahi said the President’s statement is not meant to pitch one part of the country against the other.
• He said, “The issue came up for discussion at the meeting and they threw their weight behind Mr President. We would like to clarify in addition to all that had been said that the import of Mr President’s message to the World Bank was in recognition of the particular devastation that Boko Haram has caused in that region.”