The National Legal Adviser of All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Muiz Banire (SAN), has raised the alarm that his life was being threatened over his principled stance against imposition of candidates by certain powerful individuals in the party for the Lagos Local Government election holding this week Saturday, July 22, 2017.
There have been widespread allegations and protests among APC members in several LGAs/LCDAs across the state over cases of imposition and replacement of candidates who were believed to have been elected at the party guided primaries held in May this year.
Banire claimed that some persons were being sponsored to stage a protest against him tomorrow in Lagos.
The former commissioner for environment under the Bola Tinubu government, in a statement he personally signed and made available to journalists, today, said, as the custodian of the party’s constitution it will not be right for him to watch and allow candidates chosen by the people replaced overnight by candidates preferred by the political godfathers. He claimed that the protest being planned against him in Lagos is financially induced.
He said: “It has come to my attention the rent-a-crowd rally being organised by one Mr. Seye Oladejo, a former Chairman of Mushin Local Government and the current Special Assistant to the Governor of Lagos State on the Environment with the assistance of some elements to destroy the democratic aspirations of the people.
“The said rally is being planned to hold on Tuesday the 18th day of July, 2017. It is saddening to note that not satisfied with the several threat to life messages emanating from their quarters and addressed to me to intimidate me, these rudderless agents of anti-democratic practices in Lagos State have perfected plans to carry out a financially induced protest march against me in order to impose their soulless campaign of imposition of candidates against the people of Lagos State.
“We are using this medium to reiterate that no amount of campaign of calumny or threat to life shall deter me from maintaining my principled position on the need to allow internal democracy in our great party, All Progressives Congress.
We are determined in order to instill sanity in our democratic experiment and allow progressive development in Nigeria.
“As the National Legal Adviser of APC, I am the custodian of the constitution of our great party and the counsellor of the party on legal matters. It would be most destructive to find me lending my weight in favour of imposition of candidates on the members of the party in order to promote a culture of personality cult advancement being nursed and nurtured by the likes of the organisers of this conscienceless rally.”
Banire notified members of the public and progressive members of APC not to be confused by the antics of those he called ‘agents of dictatorship’ who would level allegation of anti-democratic stance against other political parties in power but would savour every bit of dictatorship when they hold the reins of power.
“A life without a worthy principle is not worth living”, he concludes.
-Folorunsho Hamsat
