Ahead of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) convention fixed for Monday, May 14, knocks and controversies are still trailing Tuesday’s announcement of Lagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), as the Director, Strategic Communications for President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 presidential campaign.
Otherwise, by this appointment, Keyamo becomes the official spokesperson for Buhari’s campaign for the 2019 presidential poll.
Nigeria Elections 2019 Desk gathered that the letter informing him of the appointment was signed by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who also doubles as the Director General, President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation.
However, there had been speculations that a lot of the members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party may not have been carried along in the appointment.
A source in the party alleged that the appointment was not from the president, but Amaechi who only took the letter to the president to sign.
On the authenticity of the May 14 convention date, the notification letter signed by Mai Mala Buni, the party’s National Secretary, addressed to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), informed the Commission that whereas may 14th date remained sacrosanct, the party also scheduled May 2 for the conduct of its ward congresses, and May 5, for the conduct of its local government congresses while the state congresses are scheduled to hold on Wednesday, May 9.
The letter headlined; ‘Notice of Conduct of Congresses/National Convention’, reads in parts: “We wish to advise that our party is scheduled to conduct ward, local government, state congresses and national convention to fill vacant offices arising from effusion of time or appointment into government offices, death and other reasons as stipulated in Article 17 of our party’s constitution.
“Please be informed that we also intend to conduct special local government congresses to elect delegates to our forthcoming national convention. Meanwhile, this serves as a formal notice in line with the provision of Electoral Act,” APC NWC noted.
It would be recalled that the convention became a necessity after President Muhammadu Buhari kicked against the one year tenure extension granted the John Odigie-Oyegun led National Working Committee (NWC) by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party.
