Barring any last minute change, governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will be elected on Friday as the ruling party commences the process that will culminate in the emergence of its presidential candidate on June 1, 2022.

Delegates will pick the candidates in the 28 states where governorship elections will hold as there will be no election in eight states in 2023 where the elections are off-season.

The states include Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Kogi, Imo as well as Ekiti and Osun states where elections will take place in June and July.

While Ekiti governorship election has been slated for June 18, Osun polls will be held on July 16.

The APC has cleared 145 governorship aspirants for the Friday primaries.

Thirty-seven panels in one for each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were inaugurated on Tuesday at the party’s national secretariat.

The panels, in addition to conducting the election of delegates, will also screen cleared aspirants for House of Assembly elections.

Also, of the 351 aspirants that purchased senatorial nomination forms, 340 got a clean bill of health.

It was gathered that a senatorial aspirant from one of the South-West states, who picked the nomination form, failed to appear before any of the three screening panels at the weekend.

There are 1,197 aspirants for the House of Representatives.

On May 22, House of Assembly primaries in 36 states will hold as 2,822 aspirants will be screened between today and tomorrow.

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The election to pick candidates for the House of Representatives is on May 24 and Senate on May 25.

Speaking on the development, the APC Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Abubakar Kyari, who inaugurated the 37 Congresses Committees, said: “This is the foundation of all the primaries. We have just conducted the screening of the gubernatorial, senatorial, and House of Representatives aspirants.

“But, the basic foundation is what you people are going to do, which is the election of local government and state delegates.”

The Chairman of the Kebbi State panel, Osita Okechukwu, said the panel will screen aspirants it considered qualified to run for the House of Assembly.

Okechukwu added: “We have over 3000 aspirants contesting across the country. For us to do a good job, we want to make it easier for the electorate by presenting those who are better, more qualified, that meet all the conditions.

“One of which is being a Nigerian, having gone to secondary school and being of good behaviour. This is our job.

“We are going to elect five delegates per ward and there are 8,809 wards in the country. Those elected five delegates per ward will go to the state and elect the governor.

“We are going to elect three delegates from each of the 774 local governments who will elect the presidential candidate,” he stated.

The Star