Why APC Primaries Would Hold In Lagos Despite Kwankwaso,Atiku And Rochas Objection

The APC presidential primaries/convention will be held in Lagos despite the objection of four of the five presidential aspirants of the party.

The programme was supposed to be held in Abuja but the date fixed clashed with that of the ruling PDP and Lagos was suggested as the alterative but all the aspirants except General Buhari opposed the move in a protest letter sent to the party.

Benin was adopted as the alternative city until when the wind of change blew and the chairman of the convention committee and former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi told newsmen that the programme would hold in Lagos.

According to him, 8,000 delegates, both elected and statutory from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), are expected to arrive in Lagos for the APC national convention where the party would elect it presidential candidate for the 2015 general election.

Chairman of the convention committee Kayode Fayemi gave reasons why Lagos was chosen for the APC national Convention where it presidential candidate will be elected.

He said: “We originally wanted to hold our national convention in Abuja because, naturally Abuja is the place to hold an event of this nature.

However, we had identified a date to hold the party convention in Abuja and due to some exigencies we had to change that date. It so happened that the new date we choose now coincides with the date the PDP also chose for their national convention.

“We then looked at other options. We looked at Port Harcourt Benin and Lagos. We felt that of all the factors that are considered to be critical to the success of our convention only Lagos has successfully met those criteria.

He listed some of the criteria to include “comprehensive security measures full coverage by the media capacity to accommodate 10,000 delegates. There is no other city that can do that outside Abuja and Lagos.

“This is a democratic party; for us as a committee the process is more important than who will eventually emerge. We did not arrive at Lagos accidentally, we arrived at Lagos with the full input of all our presidential aspirants.”

He assured the presidential aspirants that the choice of Lagos was not meant to give undue advantage to any aspirant, and said that the members of the committee were staking their credibility to ensure that the process was fair transparent.