Former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, was on Tuesday named chairman of the 27-member All Progressives Congress convention planning committee.
Former acting national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje was named as deputy chairman of the committee.
The committee was given the task of planning the convention as well as fashioning out the modality of electing the party’s presidential candidate for the 2015 presidential poll.
The committee has 21 days within which to deliver complete its assignment.
While inaugurating the committee, national chairman of the party, Chief John Oyegun, said members were carefully chosen after a painstaking search among equally competent members.
He explained that members of the Nigerian public were eager to see how the party will come up with a candidate that will truly be an alternative to what the present PDP-led administration was offering.
Oyegun said, “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.
“I want to say that you have been selected after a lot of agonizing because the state of our party and the need for change we have to have people who truly believe in change and by the way they organise and conduct the primaries”.
He noted that the entire nation is collectively waiting with bated breath on behalf of and in sympathy with the APC because at every stage of the existence of the party, there have been prophecies of doom.
According to Oyegun, some of the naysayers, especially members of the ruling PDP had always said the APC was a party of strange bed fellows who cannot agree.
He also said, “We have given a very deep thought for every member of this committee, we found the choice of chairman particularly difficult, we were even looking for a retired judge at one stage.
“But, by flash of inspiration, it occurred to us that there is somebody in our midst who can be described as virtually as white as snow”.
Oyegun also announced that to prove to all aspirants, party members and Nigerians that the party remains committed to transparency, it has included representatives of all the aspirants as observers in the committee.
The five representatives of the presidential aspirants are: Hon. Greg Eguh, Hon. Faruk Adamu Aliyu, Murtala Garo, Yusuf Mai-Anguwa and Hon. Ifeoluwa Arowosoge.
The five APC presidential aspirants are: former military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Governors of Kano and Imo States, Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso and Rochas Okorocha respectively, and Publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah.
Responding on behalf of committee members, Fayemi said, each member of the committee felt honoured to be considered worthy to perform the task ahead.
