Former presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Adamu Garba, has claimed that the ruling party has plans in place to foist a consensus presidential candidate on the other aspirants.

This allegation comes less than two weeks after Garba quit the APC over failure to raise N100m to purchase the presidential Nomination and Expression of Interest forms of the party.

The presidential hopeful, who managed to raise N83.4m in donations from Nigerians, has since moved to the Young Progressive Party (YPP) to realise his ambition.

In an interview with The Punch, Garba revealed that while 25 presidential aspirants in the APC were traversing the country to solicit votes from delegates, the Abdullahi Adamu-led leadership of the party was plotting to hand the presidential ticket to a consus candidate.

“As we get ready for the primaries as a party, it was looking clear that there is a game plan geared towards installing somebody as a consensus candidate. It betrays the tenet of democracy completely.

“At the same time, we, young people, in the party are completely obliterated. The more you bring new ideas, new solutions and suggest changes, the more you are perceived as an enemy, and somebody that should be thrown out of the window,” he said.

Garba also warned that the APC was not a platform young people should aspire to be, adding that the reason he dumped the party was due to alleged anti-democratic policies.

He said, “There are certain steps that the APC has taken over time that seem to be anti-democratic. They just betrayed the whole democratic tenet.

“A situation where people went for a convention that turned out to be an enthronement. Nobody was given the opportunity to practise democracy.

“When you look at the whole thing, you will see we don’t have a future here. We have ‘financialised’ everything from health care, education, roads and even the office that is supposed to deliver the goods. That’s one thing that made me conclude that the party really doesn’t represent the future.

“That’s why you will see killings in Katsina, Zamfara, Niger Delta, South-East, North-East and nobody is doing anything about them. It is because we don’t care about humans but resources.

“That is the direction of the policymakers. That’s why our young people are running away from the country and nobody cares. In fact, some ministers are even saying it is good,” Garba concluded.

The aspirant recently revealed that he has used part of the donation he got from Nigerians to purchase the Expression of Interest and Nomination forms of the YPP.