The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has ruled out automatic tickets for its first term members at the National Assembly.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Barrister Felix Morka, in a statement said the party would not give automatic tickets to federal lawmakers who are members of the party as reported by an online medium.
Sequel to the recent defections from the opposition parties, APC is leading in the Senate with 68 senators out of 109 members and over 200 in the 360-member House of Representatives.
Also, there has been influx of opposition leaders into the ruling party ahead of the 2027 general elections.
While some of the defectors have cited internal wrangling in their parties, others said they joined the APC to be part of a government that “delivers dividend of democracy” to the people.
Also, there were claims in some quarters that some of the defectors who joined the APC were promised automatic tickets.
But the party said, “The attention of the APC has been drawn to a purported ‘breaking news report tagged, ‘APC grants automatic tickets to all National Assembly members’ in viral circulation.
The report is fake news and should be disregarded in its entirety as it did not emanate from our great party.
“We urge all party members and the general public to disregard the report as fake and of mischievous origin.”
Earlier events
All the 22 governors who are members of the APC, all its members in the National Assembly, and its National Working Committee (NWC), alongside zonal leaderships recently endorsed and adopted President Tinubu as the party’s sole candidate for the 2027 election.
This came barely two years into his administration and despite the fact that the president is yet to formally announce his intention to seek re-election.
Tinubu was formally adopted as the sole presidential candidate of the APC during the party’s National Summit held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The summit, themed “Renewed Hope Agenda: The Journey So Far,” saw overwhelming support from key party stakeholders, including governors, members of the National Assembly and the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
Chairman of the Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF) and governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, announced the unanimous endorsement of the President by all the 22 APC governors.
Following Uzodinma’s announcement, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, announced that the APC members in the National Assembly also endorsed Tinubu for a second term.
National Chairman of the APC, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje also announced that the party’s NWC endorsed Tinubu for re-election.
Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, who also chairs the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), said Nigeria was on the right path with Tinubu at the helm.
Speaking on behalf of all 36 state governors, AbdulRazaq defended the APC’s choice of Tinubu as its 2023 presidential candidate and highlighted his administration’s achievements over the past two years. He urged Nigerians to support the president’s policies and programmes going forward.
The endorsement at the summit was a continuation of earlier expressions of support across various APC strongholds. On May 18, APC leaders from the North West gathered in Kaduna where they endorsed the president.
The meeting was attended by the APC National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, and governors from the region including Uba Sani (Kaduna), Nasir Idris (Kebbi), and Umar Namadi (Jigawa). Similar endorsements were also done in other quarters in the country.
Following Tinubu’s adoption, federal lawmakers and state governors who are in their first term on the platform of the APC have high hopes that they would also be given automatic tickets.
President Tinubu had also raised their hope during the presentation of the 2025 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly when he said, “You are all re-elected.”
Presenting the budget for the 2025 fiscal year to the lawmakers in December last year, President Tinubu jokingly told the legislators that they were all re-elected.
Tinubu had also erroneously referred to the 10th National Assembly as the 11th National Assembly during his presentation. But the lawmakers drew the president’s attention to the error.
Following this, there was furore in the House of Representatives chamber where the joint session was held, prompting the president to say, “Which means you are re-elected.”
When the lawmakers heard the president’s remark, they started singing, “On your mandate we shall stand…”
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