*As APC assembles intellectuals to screen Obaseki others
The National Working Committee (NWC) of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned that it has the powers to reject the result of its Screening and Appeals Committee ahead of the June 22 governorship primary elections in Edo state if it notices discrepancies
This even as the party assembled eminent academics, lawyers and politicians to screen the six aspirants who have purchased nomination forms to contest the Edo gubernatorial elections.
The party had earlier displayed the credentials of all the aspirants at it’s natioional secretarial in Abuja for public scrutiny.
Speaking while inaugurating the seven man Screening Committee and five man Appeal Committee, APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole said the party must be very strict in screening of it’s aspirants in order to avoid a repeat of its ugly experience at the Bayelsa State governorship case which it lost out of improper screening of its candidates
“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….”
While speaking on the role of the NWC,
Oshiomhole maintained that the NWC will be at the end of the screening exercise if there are discrepancies
“NWC can reject the screening result. In this case the Screening committee is High Court, Appeal Committee is Appeal Court and the NWC, the Supreme Court.”
Prof Jonathan Abubakar from Nasarawa State University, Lafia will serve as Chairmen of the, Screening Committee, while Prof Abubakar Fari chairs the Appeals committee.
