The key opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, has called an emergency meeting of its National Working Committee to discuss pressing concerns, including the possibility of postponing its national convention, which was scheduled for today.
The NWC meeting, which is now taking place in Abuja, is expected to address problems relating to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s decision to extend the deadline for party primaries across the country.
The council of political parties had sought INEC to extend the period for primaries after outstanding issues arose from the procedure across the country, according to a statement released by the commission on Friday night. The judgment allowed the primary deadline to be pushed back from June 3 to June 9.
As a result of the move, the largest opposition party called a meeting of its officials to discuss if the deadline extension would give the All Progressives Congress an advantage in the 2023 presidential election.
An official of the party who has the itinerary of the meeting, Friday night, said “We have strong reasons to believe that the extension was announced by INEC today to allow the APC properly digest the outcome of the PDP’s convention and pick its candidate accordingly.”
“We were supposed to have our convention a day apart, but this latest move could give the APC a window to shift its convention by additional days just to properly strategise against whoever emerged as flag-bearer at our convention.”
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