Cross River State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, inaugurated an eight-man ad hoc committee to prune the number of governorship aspirants from 17 to four.

The state party Chairman, Mr. Alphonsus Eba, while briefing the press shortly after the inauguration at the conference room of the party secretariat, disclosed that after the committee submission of its report, any aspirant not satisfied with the outcome could go-ahead to buy the form and face the primaries.

He said the committee, which would be headed by Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, a one-time Senate Leader at the National Assembly is expected to select two aspirants from the south with another two from the central, making four, to run for primaries on May 10, 2022.

Eba said the idea to cut down the number of aspirants was not to deprive anyone of contesting but to prevent aspirants from wasting their money to purchase forms.

“The essence of this interaction is to make a corrigendum against all reports that were geared into putting us in a bad light.

“We are democrats. Our processes will remain very civil and democratic. Our attempt towards building consensus but not to subvert the right of any aspirant or cowed them into accepting what is not within their whims and caprices.

“It is only to make an appeal because of the harsh economic realities of our times that putting N50m for governorship form and spending 10 per cent of that on administrative charges even though it will make us comfortable, but we are concerned about the unity of our party.”

Ndoma-Egba also explained that the committee has no constitutional powers to ask anyone to drop his or her aspiration, rather their assignment is to interface with aspirants to persuade them of the need to trim the number to a manageable one.