The National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress has cleared 24 governorship candidates for the 2019 election.
The information was contained in a statement by the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Yekini Nabena.
According to Nabena, the candidates were cleared by the NWC of the party at its meeting held on October 4, based on the ratified reports of the various Electoral Committees that oversaw the primaries that produced them.
This leaves the party with outstanding 12 governorship candidates, whose names must be submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before midnight on Sunday, which is the deadline.
Among those cleared were Babajide Sanwo-Olu for Lagos State, Tonye Cole for Rivers State and Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, who went through contentious primaries, with the last two having contenders produced at parallel primaries.
Abiodun is still contending with the parallel candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, produced at the primaries supervised by the Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun.
Amosun was at the Presidential Villa in Abuja where he met with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is also from Ogun State, on the issue.
In Rivers State, Senator Magnus Abe is still contending for the ticket, having been produced as candidate at a parallel convention.
Cole is believed to have the support of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
The candidates cleared by the APC NWC:
1. ABDULLAHI UMAR GANDUJE – KANO STATE
2. MOHAMMED ABUBAKAR – BAUCHI STATE
3. SIMON LALONG – PLATEAU STATE
4. NASIR EL-RUFAI – KADUNA STATE
5. MOHAMMED BADARU ABUBAKAR – JIGAWA STATE
6. AHMED ALIYU – SOKOTO STATE
7. ABUBAKAR ATIKU BAGUDU – KEBBI STATE
8. AMINU BELLO MASARI – KATSINA STATE
9. ABUBAKAR SANI BELLO – NIGER STATE
10. BABAGANA UMARA-ZULUM – BORNO STATE
11. MAI MALA BUNI – YOBE STATE
12. ABUBAKAR A. SULE – NASARAWA STATE
13. EMMANUEL JIMME – BENUE STATE
14. BABAJIDE SANWO-OLU – LAGOS STATE
15. TONYE COLE – RIVERS STATE
16. UCHE OGAH – ABIA STATE
17. NSIMA EKERE – AKWA-IBOM STATE
18. ADEBAYO ADELABU – OYO STATE
19. DAPO ABIODUN – OGUN STATE
20. GREAT OGBORU – DELTA STATE
21. OWAN ENOH – CROSS-RIVER
22. INUWA YAHAYA – GOMBE STATE
23. SUNNY OGBOJI – EBONYI STATE
24. SANI ABUBAKAR DANLADI – TARABA STATE.
