A full-blown internal crisis has erupted within the All Progressives Congress (APC) following the conduct of senatorial primaries across the country, as the Presidential Villa and the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) find themselves on a collision course with state governors who defied carefully signalled preferences from the presidency while several serving senators who had defected from opposition parties to the APC in search of safe haven ahead of 2027 discovered that switching allegiance offered no protection, losing their tickets either at the polls or through pre-primary disqualification.

The crisis, which had been brewing beneath the surface of the party’s primary season, burst into the open as results from multiple states contradicted the wishes of the national leadership, raising the real prospect of the NWC invoking its constitutional powers to set aside outcomes and impose candidates that better reflect the will of the Presidential Villa.

At the heart of the crisis is a pattern that played out in at least three states where aspirants believed to enjoy the direct backing of President Bola Tinubu or his inner circle were either edged out or overlooked in favour of candidates preferred by incumbent governors.

In Edo State, it was learnt that the wife of the President, Mrs Remi Tinubu, threw her weight behind Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu for a senatorial ticket. Yet parallel and conflicting declarations from the exercise suggested that the governor’s preferred structure prevailed on the ground, producing a disputed outcome in Edo South where both Ize-Iyamu and rival aspirant Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama claimed victory based on results announced by different chairmen of the primary election committee.

In Delta State, President Tinubu’s body language was widely read within party circles as an endorsement of former Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege for Delta Central. Yet the governor moved firmly in a different direction, and Omo-Agege was crushed by incumbent Senator Ede Dafinone, who polled 116,252 votes to Omo-Agege’s 3,643 a margin so devastating that it left no room for the Villa’s preferred outcome to be salvaged.

In Bayelsa State, Ben Murray-Bruce was understood to have secured the nod of the Villa, only for the state governor to disregard that signal entirely and assert his own authority over the outcome. Murray-Bruce had initially appeared on the APC’s list of uncleared aspirants before being removed in an unexplained U-turn a development that itself raised questions about competing instructions reaching the screening committee from different power centres within the party.

The trouble extended far beyond those three states. In Ondo State, the senatorial primaries in Ondo Central were rocked by severe disruptions, gunshots, and violence orchestrated by political thugs. Armed men stormed the voting venue at Ward 5 in Akure, firing sporadically and striking the vehicle of incumbent Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire with bullets. Aggrieved aspirants filed an official petition with the National Chairman, labelling the exercise a kangaroo process manipulated by powerful state actors.

The national leadership had earlier rejected a consensus list backed by Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa a snub that deepened existing tensions and set the stage for the violent breakdown that followed.

In Ogun State, serving lawmakers and outraged party members openly condemned the exercise as shameful. Deputy Chief Whip Isiaka Ibrahim accused Governor Dapo Abiodun of orchestrating a heavily manipulated affirmation process rather than conducting a genuine primary election a charge that has drawn significant attention within party circles. Governor Abiodun won the Ogun East senatorial ticket after his rival Senator Gbenga Daniel pulled out, citing threats of violence.

The disorder spread to Kogi, Kwara, and Taraba states, each producing its own distinct brand of crisis.

In Kogi East, incumbent Senator Jibrin Isah fiercely rejected the primary results, accusing Governor Ahmed Ododo’s camp of hijacking election materials and systematically intimidating his supporters in what he described as a coordinated takeover of the process. Separately, former Governor Yahaya Bello was declared “not cleared” for the Kogi Central primary amid ongoing EFCC corruption trials.

In Kwara Central, confusion descended after a “fraudulent” cleared aspirants list surfaced on the morning of the election, falsely including the name of a prominent governorship aspirant and referencing a non-existent “Kwara East” district. The exercise was subsequently downscaled to an affirmation process widely seen as serving the interests of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

In Taraba North, fierce grassroots backlash erupted as youth groups and local party stakeholders openly revolted against a screening committee endorsement that favoured incumbent Senator Shuaibu Isa Lau, exposing deep dissatisfaction with the manner in which the exercise was conducted.

Sources within the party confirmed that the pattern also extends to Nasarawa, Plateau, and Rivers States, which have been identified as flashpoints where the interests of the national leadership and state governors failed to converge.

In Nasarawa, the contest between consensus and competitive primaries produced public divisions, with former Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura openly backing a candidate whose emergence the state structure had not endorsed.

In Rivers State, the complex and unresolved power dynamics between competing factions within the APC particularly the camps of FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara have made the outcome of any primary exercise deeply susceptible to challenge from multiple directions. Wike’s allies swept all 13 House of Representatives tickets and key Senate positions, while several aspirants including former Deputy Governor Ipalibo Banigo were disqualified.

Party sources confirmed that the NWC is now conducting a quiet audit of results from these and other states, with overrides being actively considered wherever due process is found to have been compromised.

Prior to the commencement of the primaries, the national leadership had moved to provide itself with the procedural cover needed to justify any intervention. The National Secretariat issued a disclaimer signed by Albukalreem Bala Kwali, Chief of Staff to the National Chairman, declaring that all results being circulated in the media were unauthorised and did not represent the party’s official position. The NWC explicitly directed that no results should be announced until they had been formally reviewed, verified, and approved.

The disclaimer followed an earlier directive from National Organising Secretary Sulaiman Argungu, warning all primary committees against conducting media briefings outside Abuja effectively giving the NWC a firm procedural basis on which to review, adjust, or nullify outcomes that do not align with the preferences of the national leadership.

Beyond the Villa-versus-governors conflict, the primary season delivered a particularly bitter outcome for several serving senators who had abandoned opposition parties to join the APC, believing that membership of the ruling party would guarantee them return tickets for 2027.

At the inauguration of the 10th Senate on June 13, 2023, the APC held 59 of the 109 Senate seats short of the 73 needed for a two-thirds supermajority. The PDP held 36 seats, the Labour Party eight, NNPP two, SDP two, APGA one, and YPP one. As time progressed, most opposition senators, feeling threatened, defected to the APC in a wave of carpet-crossing intended to secure their political futures.

Many of those defectors have now discovered that their calculation was fatally flawed.

Leading the list of defeated defectors is Senator Ned Nwoko of Delta North, who crossed from the PDP only to be crushed by former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, polling just 2,612 votes to Okowa’s 113,309.

Senator Olubiyi Fadeyi of Osun Central also lost his primary to Barrister Kunle Adegoke, SAN, who secured 26,655 votes against Fadeyi’s 13,138.

In Edo South, Senator Neda Imasuen, who was elected on the Labour Party platform before defecting to the APC, was defeated by former House of Representatives member Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama though the Edo South result itself remains disputed following competing declarations.

Some defectors did not even make it to the primary ballot, being knocked out at the screening stage. The APC screening committee barred at least 44 senatorial aspirants from contesting, including three serving senators who had defected from the PDP.

Senator Ipalibo Banigo of Rivers West the immediate past Deputy Governor who served under Wike was disqualified alongside other Rivers aspirants Tein Jack-Rich, Tamunobaabo Danagogo, and Ojukaye Flag-Amachree. Speaking on her disqualification, Banigo said she was unaware of any political motive behind the party’s decision.

Senator Benson Agadaga of Bayelsa East, who came to the Senate in 2023 on the PDP platform before defecting earlier this year, was listed as “not cleared” in the updated screening list.

Senator Garba Maidoki of Kebbi South, another PDP-to-APC defector, was similarly disqualified.

In Imo East, Senator Ezenwa Onyewuchi another defector was effectively displaced when the Imo State APC chapter declared Prince Alex Mbata winner of the senatorial primary with 121,680 votes.

Some of the disqualified defectors, including Banigo, have appealed to President Tinubu and the APC national leadership to intervene, while others who lost at the polls have expressed public dissatisfaction.

The deepening crisis exposes a fundamental fault line at the heart of the APC’s internal architecture one between the centripetal authority of a presidency that expects its preferences to be respected and the centrifugal force of state governors who control structures on the ground and are unwilling to cede that control regardless of signals from Abuja.

Political analysts warn that the party stands at a critical juncture where the manner in which it resolves these disputes will either reinforce President Tinubu’s grip on the party machinery or embolden governors to continue acting as independent power centres.

The NWC’s threatened override of governor-controlled outcomes carries its own risks. If the national leadership sets aside results and imposes candidates, it risks alienating the very governors whose structures it will need to mobilise voters in the 2027 general elections. If it accepts the outcomes and defers to governors, it signals that the Presidential Villa’s preferences can be ignored with impunity — weakening the president’s authority within his own party at a moment when he needs maximum control ahead of his re-election campaign.

With the 2027 general elections drawing steadily closer, the APC’s ability to present a united and disciplined front to the electorate may depend entirely on how decisively and how fairly it brings this internal reckoning to a close.

As of the time of this report, the NWC has not officially released final results for any senatorial district, maintaining its position that all outcomes remain subject to formal review, verification, and approval by the national leadership. The quiet audit continues.

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