Dr Muiz Banire, SAN, National Legal Adviser, APC

The National Legal Adviser of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Dr Muiz Banire, SAN has challenged the decision of the Lagos State chapter of the APC to conduct primaries election for all the aspirants in a centralised location insisting that such will be an exercise in futility.

A unified primary election is scheduled to hold tomorrow, May 27 at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.

Banire, in a letter addressed to the State Chairman, Henry Ajomale dated May 22, 2017 which was exclusively obtained by Complete News  argued that the move was alien to the party constitution stressing that the Local Government Executives are empowered by the APC constitution to  designate suitable venues for the exercise.

He said, “As the custodian of the party constitution, It is of utmost necessity for me to say immediately that this will not be in consonant with the letter and the spirit of the constitution. The (APC) constitution confers the power to designate the venue of such council primaries in the party Executive of the Local Government’.

Banire said in other states, local government primary elections were never done in centralized locations including Benue State chapter of the APC that recently held its primaries.

He therefore asked the state chairman to comply with the provision of the APC constitution by stopping all arrangements for tomorrow’s centralised primaries and allowed the local government executives to designate venue for the exercise in their respective councils.

The APC legal adviser added “I must say that I do not want to believe that the essence of seeking to centralize the conduct of the primaries is to manipulate and rig the process in favour of certain imposed candidates.

“To avoid this, and in line with our great party’s practice of publicizing the conduct of primaries (right from the conduct of primary for presidential election to the primaries for election at the state level – gubernatorial and National assembly), the same tradition must continue with the primaries into local governments.

“I am also aware that the National body is sending monitors while observers are expected at the various venues.

“I urge transparency and fairness in the conduct of the primaries. It is necessary to avoid any exercise in futility”.