Fayemi heads APC 24-member national convention committee

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has appointed the immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, as the chairman of its 24-member National Convention Planning Committee.

Fayemi

It also named a former acting National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Abubakar Baraje, as the deputy.

Inaugurating the Committee on Tuesday in Abuja, the National Chairman of the APC, John Oyegun, tasked the committee to plan the convention and organise the election of the APC presidential candidate within 21 days.

The party’s national convention holds on December 8 in Abuja.

He told the members of the panel that they were carefully chosen and that Nigerians were earnestly waiting to know the candidate of the party.

“You have all of 21 or 22 days, which means that the challenge before you is enormous; which means that you are virtually going to leave this inaugural ceremony and start work,” Mr. Oyegun said.

“I want to say that you have been selected after a lot of agonising because the state of our party and the need for change. We need to have people who truly believe in change and by the way they organise and conduct the primaries.”

The national chairman reminded the committee that they should work to give a lie to claims by the party’s critics that it comprised of strange bedfellows.

He said the APC leadership gave a very deep thought for every member of the committee and that it found the choice of its chairman particularly difficult. According to him, the party was at some point

looking for a retired judge to head the committee.

“But, by flash of inspiration, it occurred to us that there is somebody in our midst who can be described virtually as white as snow,” he said.

Mr. Oyegun said that representatives of all the party’s presidential aspirants were included as observers so as to prove that it was transparent.

Responding, Mr. Fayemi said every member of the committee was honoured to be considered worthy of performing the task ahead.

The former governor assured that the committee members knew the enormous task before them and that the manner it would handle the assignment would determine where the APC belonged.

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Fayemi heads APC 24-member national convention committee