5 Noticable Differences Between The Conduct Of APC & PDP Presidential Primaries In Abuja

With the conclusion of the All Progressive Congress presidential primary on Wednesday, the two major political parties are now set for the real battle on who take over from president Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

However, the primaries conducted by the two parties didn’t come to an end without some elements of dramas and surprises. PDP had conducted its primary election on Saturday May 28 and produced former vice president Atiku Abuabakar as Party Flagbearer.

Looking at the conduct of the two parties primaries, there are certain noticable differences worthy of explaining.

The first thing is the day both parties scheduled their Primaries. PDP primary was conducted on Saturday and Sunday. The activities did not pose any challenge on workers or residents of the Federal Capital Territory. It was all weekend affairs.

But in the case of APC, it was held during the working days, Tuesday and Wednesday. The two days were clumsy for the residents in terms of traffic and other inconveniences.

Secondly, the PDP primary had two major aspirants, Atiku Abubakar from the North and Nyesom Wike from the South. It was more of a battle between the two regions. 

In APC, the focus was more on Southern Aspirants. The Northern governors agreed that South should produce the next president and by so doing, most of the aspirants from the North who refused to step down already knew their fate before the commencement of the exercise.

The attention was more on Bola Tinubu, Yemi Osinbajo and Rotimi Amaechi.Thirdly, in PDP, the information about participants was straight and well laid out. 
Those who were in the contest were known as well as those who had already stepped down. The only person that chose to play politics to its fullest was Aminu Tambuwal who later stepped down for Atiku at the last minute.

In APC, no one knew who had stepped down and those who were still in the race until the exercise began. It was initially stated that Tinubu, Amaechi and Osinbajo were the only Aspirants remaining in the contest after others have been advised to step down.

But surprisingly, 14 Aspirants later step up to indicate they were still in the race. Although, some of them later stepped down for Tinubu and Osinbajo. However, their decisions not to step down early enough made the information more conflicting and confusing to people.

 Another noticable difference was the ballot paper used for the election and manner of casting votes. In PDP, it was thumbprinting. This made things easy for the delegates by stamping the names of their choiced candidate with their fingerprints.

In APC, it was a different scenario. Delegates were made to write names of their preferred candidate on ballot paper. Some of the delegates who could not write find it a herculean task to carry out their mandates. At the end, they rendered their votes void and wasted that slot.

Finally, the margin between the winner of PDP primary and runner up was close to call. While Atiku polled 371 to win the contest, Wike had a total number of 237 votes to emerge the runner up.

But in APC, the difference between Tinubu’s vote and the runner up was unimaginable. While Tinubu scored 1,271 votes to emerge the Flagbearer, the runner up, Rotimi Amaechi managed to poll 316 votes. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo came a distant third with 251 votes.

All these difference between the two parties presidential primaries were quite noticable.