The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday inaugurated the Screening Committee and the Appeal Committee for the party’s Edo State Governorship primary slated for June 22.
The party said that the National Working Committee ( NWC) remain the final clearing House for all the aspirants eligible to contest the party’s governorship primary.
The National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomole who inaugurated the 7-man screening committee and 6-man appeal committee at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja said the party invited the “wise men and women” to assist the party in screening aspirants in order to avoid the Bayelsa State experience.
Charging the committees made up of legal luminaries and academicians for a thorough job, the National Chairman said the party has gone a step higher to avoid the Bayelsa State experience by displaying the credentials of aspirants at the national Secretariat to enable members of the party and public verify the information provided by the aspirants with a view to providing any counter information that will help the screening committee in discharging their duties.
“After intensive consultations, we decided to have people who in our own judgement are sound and when they go through this process, their recommendations will be very helpful. Under our rules, we are expected to set up a screening committee before every election.
“The responsibility of the screening committee is to interact with all those who have aspirations to contest, strictly speaking, not yet aspirants. You become an aspirant after the screening committee has passed you. If anybody is dissatisfied with the screening committee’s recommendation, he/she will file an appeal and it will be forwarded to the Appeals committee and after that, they will make a final recommendation to the National Working Committee (NWC) that has the final decision as to who is eligible or who is not eligible.
“In the past, we have always performed this role but may be we did not give it the appropriate weight. May be we had assumed that people who want to aspire to certain offices particularly high elective offices of executive governor, we expect that no one will submit documents contain information that may possibly lead to disqualification. In the past, this was more of a formality but with what happened to us in Bayelsa state earlier this year, we decided to approach the issue of screening much more seriously than ever before”.
The national Chairman however said should there be discrepancies at the end of the screening and appeal exercises, “NWC can reject the screening result” stressing that, “the screening committee is High Court, Appeal Committee, Appeal Court and the NWC, the Supreme Court”.
Governor Godwin Obaseki and five others are to present themselves to screening committee on Wednesday June 10 and Thursday June 11 while the appeal committee will be sitting on Friday June 12 for any protest from the screening.
The screening committee chaired by Prof. Jonathan Ayuba has Dr. Rabe Nasir as Secretary while members include Prof. Agbo Madaki, Hon. Ibrahim Zailani, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed “Binani”, Dr. Jane- Frances Agbu and Hon. Fort Dike
Thanks appeal committee is made up of Prof. Abubakar Fari as Chairman and Barr. Daniel Bwala is to serve as Secretary. Others are Prof. Sadeeque Abba, Barr. Gbenga Olubajo, Mohammed Idris and Esther Bepeh.