Two strong Presidential aspirants under the platform of the main opposition party, All Progressives Congress, APC, at the weekend clashed. Vanguard reported that, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and former vice-president Atiku Abubakar, shared divers opinion over the procedure for adopting the 2015 presidential candidate for the party. Gen. Mohammed Buhari and Atiku Abubakar Gen. Mohammed Buhari and Atiku Abubakar READ ALSO: Why 2015 Elections Will Be Tough- Buhari It was gathered that at the end of the party’s National Executive Committee, NEC meeting last weekend, the party was unable to compromise on the issue as supporters of the major aspirants held strongly to their positions. Aside Buhari and Atiku, who were reportedly at the head of the major divisions over the adoption of a consensus or the conduct of primaries for the adoption of the presidential candidate, Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwanso and Sam Nda-Isaiah were also indifferent on the subject matter. Meanwhile, Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, whose aide was at the meeting was reported to have been mute on the issue since the governor is yet to officially declare his intention to run for president. According to a source within the party, Buhari and his supporters want a consensus on the ground that majority of the party positions across board were filled with consensus. They posited that if the consensus arrangement is jettisoned for any reason that a direct primary involving all 18 million registered members of the party be held. However, their opinion is strongly opposed by Atiku’s associates within the party hierarchy who claimed that a direct primary would be cumbersome and costly. Atiku’s supporters proposed what it called a Modified Direct Primary that would involve about 20,000 delegates choosing the party candidate. “The decision of our campaign to support the Modified Direct Primary is not because of anything but for its practical applicability. If you say you want direct primary, how can you get all 18 million registered APC voters to take part? That would mean you will be setting up a vote in every polling booth, doing the same thing as INEC is doing. It will be the same thing as a general election. Where do you have the resources, the manpower, the time and the security support for this?” Atiku said. Buhari and his allies who negated the proposal alleged that it would offer opportunity to easily woo or take over delegates hitherto pledged to other aspirants. They claimed that the introduction of full direct primary would limit the prospect of Atiku wooing the delegates unlike a modified primary that could see Atiku and his agents now in the field winning the number of delegates. “Having carefully examined our great party” the APC constitution, especially Article 20 and the Electoral Act 2010, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that it is better to adopt consensus in electing our candidates for House of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate, Governor and presidential candidates and where it fails to adopt direct primary,” one of Buhari’s supporters who did not want his name in print said. It said when one considers the bitterness, rancour and bad blood indirect primary will most likely generate, it was safer to work towards a consensual agreement, adding that more than 80% of the ward, local government area and state congresses which produced the current executives of the party were conducted through consensual arrangement as well as more than 95% of the current National Executive Committee who were also elected via consensus. READ ALSO: ‘Buhari, Tinubu, Others Will Return To PDP‘ “We must at all times bear in mind that we are being hunted and that those who boasted to rule Nigeria for 60 years uninterrupted, are still hell bent to scuttle the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians for genuine ideological regime change” he said. It would be recalled that former vice president Atiku Abubakar, on September 24, 2014 formally declare to run for the 2015 presidential election on the platform of APC, while Buhari is yet to officially do so although his posters are already floating in the street of Lagos.

A formerly Archbishop of Lagos in the Roman Catholic Church, Olubunmi Okogie, said the current president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Ayo Oritsejafor is making a mockery of the association by his closeness to President Goodluck Jonathan and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
Mr. Okogie described Ayo Oritsejafor as “fallen from grace to grass”,  and added that he has also lost grip of the leadership of CAN.
During an interview with the New Telegraph newspapers, Mr. Okogie said Mr Oritsejafor “unrighteous” quest to remain in power and his “romance” with politicians have finished him and derailed the once respected Christian body from the lofty dreams of its founding fathers.
“My brother, I must tell you this; CAN leadership today is zero. CAN has no leader,” he said.
“Thank God you are talking to one of the founders of CAN, and I was there as their leader for eight years. Then, the whole country knew that CAN had a leader, not by my own might, but by God. Because what we were doing then, we had only one voice. But the problem we have now is that people are struggling for power in unrighteous way. And because he is struggling for power, he can do little or nothing.
“And we didn’t buy the position. But this time around, because they are rushing to be in power, nobody obeys them. And look at how they are making mockery of themselves and making mockery of “religion”. Is that religion? Today, they are with the federal government. We saw the writing on the wall when we left. The very first person that took over started romancing with Obasanjo. Then one or two CAN presidents tried their best before it got to this present CAN president, Oritsejafor. This is not right. Look at how Oritsejafor has fallen, from grace to grass,” he added.
Mr. Okogie took a swipe at the CAN president over his link with the $9.3 million smuggled abroad purportedly to procure arms and seized by South African authorities.
Two Nigerians and an Israeli were arrested at the Lanseria Airport in South Africa on September 5, 2014 as they tried to enter the country with the cash conveyed in a private jet owned by the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Ayo Oritsejafor.
Mr Okojie said if Mr Oritsejafor is indeed a man of God as he claimed he should rely on God and should have no business getting involved in the $9.3 million arms scandal.
“They are ready with their moneybags. Where did they get the money from? Where did they get the $9.3m that has been seized by South Africa from? They said it was to buy arms. We have to be very careful in this nation. What is the man (Oritsejafor) looking for? If you call yourself a man of God, then you should rely on God. Why should he be jumping up and down? But because he was not elected, not chosen by God, that is what is happening. Today, he wants to build a university, tomorrow he wants to be something else, next tomorrow he wants to be like other people.
He said Mr Oritsejafor is a sinking man and might take President Goodluck Jonathan down with him.
Criticising the House of Representatives for electing not to investigate the botched arms deal, Mr. Okogie said the deal was a clear case of money laundering and that President Jonathan and Mr. Oritsejafor should be prosecuted for their involvement in the deal.
The Catholic priest also spared some stinging words for private jet flying mega preachers in the country describing their taste for finery things as unbiblical. He said rather than surround themselves with material things; they should instead spend the money to take care of the needy in the society.