The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, has chased away accredited journalists from the party’s secretariat in Abuja.

It was gathered that Adamu ordered one of the security operatives at the secretariat to inform the journalists to leave the party’s secretariat premises

The security operative, it was learnt, said Adamu asked him to send journalists out of the secretariat on the ground that the APC chairman was returning to the secretariat to hold a meeting and the place was too crowded.

This is coming barely a few hours after the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) said Adamu endorsed Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, as the party’s consensus presidential candidate.

Adamu was said to have announced Lawan to President Muhammadu Buhari as the party’s consensus candidate.

However, President Buhari, while speaking on the development, assured APC members that a consensus presidential candidate won’t be imposed on the party.

READ ALSO: APC NWC divided over nomination of Lawan as consensus candidate

Speaking at a meeting with the Northern APC governors at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday, Buhari said “the party is important and its members must be respected and made to feel they are important”.

This was contained in a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu.

The statement partly read: “President Muhammadu Buhari, Monday afternoon cleared all doubts about where he stands on the choice of a presidential candidate for the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, declaring before the party’s 14 governors of northern states that he has ‘no preferred candidate’, and has ‘anointed no one’, and is determined to ensure that ‘there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party’.

“The President said he had a clear mind about what he was doing and asked the APC governors to feel the same way: You were elected as I was. Have a clear mind as I have. God gave us the chance; we have no reason to complain. We must be ready to take pain as we take the joy. Allow the delegates to decide. The Party must participate, nobody will appoint anybody,” Shehu stated.

The Star