APC: How Lagos chapter is daring Oyegun’s powers

Although the plot to kick Banire out of APC did not start today, pundits are unanimous that if his expulsion is eventually carried out, that would mark the climax of a bitter brickbat among political allies turned foes.

Banire appeared to have steered the hornets’ nest when few weeks ago, he granted an explosive interview to a national daily, deriding the as a charade of primaries organized by the Lagos State chapter of APC ahead of the recent local government election held in the state.

According to Banire, the crises that followed the primaries were as a result of absence of a level playing field for all aspirants on the party’s platform. He particularly lashed out on the centralized primary held for all of the aspirants at Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere Lagos, describing the process as a nullity.

Incidentally, few days after his interview was published, a chairmanship aspirant in Odi-Olowo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Hakeem Ishola, got a favourable court order that nullified the emergence of another aspirant, Rasaq Ajala, as the party’s candidate.

Ishola’s court victory was said to have been perceived as a potent affront to the party’s hierarchy. The fact that it even happened at Banire’s constituency made it easier for many to point accusing finger at him as the brain behind the party’s supposed humiliation at the court.

The party’s chairman in Lagos State, Henry Ajomale, was the first to fire the salvo at Banire, a former Lagos State Commissioner. A livid Ajomale accused Banire of obtaining the court verdict for his godson, Ishola through deceit.

“This judgment in respect of Odi-Olowo LCDA was obtained by deception. It was an ambush. The judge was misled into believing those presented to him as genuine members of the APC have nothing to do with the conduct and organisation of the primaries… The court process had been on for more than a month, but the party only knew a day before Banire got the judgment. This judgment is frivolous. This is a pyrrhic victory.

“The party has set in motion the process of putting down the judgment by way of appeal. We have put together a crack team of senior legal practitioners to properly defend the party. This judgment cannot stand,” Ajomale said in a statement.

Although Banire fired back at the state party chairman, describing him as someone who was ignorant of what he was saying, nonetheless, the tirade launched against him by Ajomale only went to open a floodgate of other onslaughts.

On July 18, 2017, hundreds of APC party members from Mushin Local Government and Odi-Olowo LCDA trooped out to protest against Banire and call for his expulsion.

The protesters who stormed the Lagos State governor’s office, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly’s office and the state party secretariat on Acme road, Agidingbi Ikeja, held various banners and placards that read ‘Enough Is Enough,’ ‘Banire Must Go,’’ ‘Banire, Custodian of Party Destruction’, among others.

That has hardly simmered when the Deputy Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Wasiu Ehinlokun Sanni, dragged Banire before a Lagos State High court, sitting in Ikeja. He, alongside Babatunde John Kehinde and Kazeem Olatunji were asking the court to determine “whether the defendant, by his conduct, is a fit and proper person to occupy the office of national legal adviser of the party and by extension, membership of the national convention, national executive committee and national working committee of the APC by virtue of Articles 12.3; 12. 4 and 12. 5 of the provisions of the Constitution of the APC 2014 (as amended).

They also asked the court to issue a mandatory order directing the party to take appropriate disciplinary measures against Banire as entrenched in Article 21 of the provisions of the APC Constitution, among other demands.

While the case instituted by the state deputy speaker was still pending, the local chapter of APC in Ward C area of Mushin LG announced Banire’s suspension, pending the time a disciplinary committee set up by it to investigate alleged anti-party activities would submit its report.

Banire’s suspension was to set both the National Secretariat of the party and the Lagos State chapter against each other; and while the party headquarters in Abuja was quick to nullify the purported suspension of the legal adviser, the Lagos State chapter accused its headquarters of acting in ignorance.

Leading the charge against the national secretariat was the APC spokesman in Lagos, Joe Igbokwe, who said in a statement that “the National Executive Committee of our great party acted in a haste to try to rescue the sagging and battered image of Muiz Banire who is having a running battle with his political base in Lagos.

“The Lagos chapter of APC will support and encourage our patriotic and hardworking followers from Mushin LGA to exercise their fundamental human rights without let or hindrance,” he added.

As the back and forth rages and the list of gladiators ready to take on Banire continuously grew, some pundits are accusing the state government of being surreptitiously involved in his predicament.

In fact, those who are loyal to the embattled former commissioner are quick to point at the statement credited to Kehinde Bamigbetan, the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, on Communities and Communication, while receiving protesters that stormed the State House, Alausa, on July 18 to press for Banire’s expulsion.

Bamigbetan was credited to have said to the protesters: “We ourselves have been embarrassed by the infantile vituperations of a career opportunist who has exploited the platform of the Asiwaju movement to get to where he is today. It is our responsibility to support your quest for justice and discipline within the party.

“We have a precedent when Timi Frank was disciplined and his offence was that he went out of the party’s communication system to embarrass the party. He was suspended and recommended for expulsion. What else can we now say that a national legal adviser of the party, who ought to know the limitations of the law, who ought to know that just as there is internal party democracy there is also internal party communication system and for him to have gone out of the party system to demoralize our party members, to embarrass the party and to undermine the fortunes of the party at a time when we are in the middle of an election season, there is no greater grievous offence than that,” he said.

For Banire’s followers, the fact that the special adviser, who actually stood in to receive the protesters on behalf of Ambode, could utter that much had no doubt exposed the partisanship of the government in the unfolding drama. Habib Aruna, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ambode, would, however, not want to dabble into the matter. He declined to comment when Daily Trust sought him out on the extent of state government’s involvement in Banire’s predicament.

However, another top aide of the governor, who pleaded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists on the development, dismissed allegation of state government’s interest in the unfolding drama, insisting that the governor has more priorities than to be getting involved in petty politics.

Yet, no matter how Ambode’s aides may choose to deflect their principal of partisanship in Banire’s predicament, not many political observers are willing to accept that narrative.

For those in the know, the genesis of Banire’s confrontation with the state party leadership dated back to the politicking that characterized the pre-2015 gubernatorial election in the state.

Earlier tipped among the likely successors of former Governor Raji Fashola (SAN), who is the current Minister of Power, Works and Housing, is Banire, who was said to have done everything possible to get the nod of the National Leader of APC and former Governor of the state, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but was deeply hurt that he could not secure his blessings.

That Tinubu eventually settled for Ambode was also said to have irked the APC legal adviser, which insiders claimed led him to grant the fiery interview published by a major online newspaper in November 2014.

The interview was the first known burst up that can be attributed to Banire in his many years of relationship with Tinubu. In the interview, he derided political godfatherism in the state and even went a step further to predict electoral loss for the party if his advice about the need to provide a level-playing field for all governorship aspirants was not heeded. Quick interventions of prominent leaders were said to have saved the day at the time and Banire, like many other disgruntled chieftains of the party, had reluctantly joined the mobilization efforts that handed victory to Ambode at the 2015 gubernatorial poll.

That notwithstanding, the seed of discord had been planted in the hearts of the gladiators and it only took the recent local government primaries to throw open the lingering acrimony.

As it is now, the disciplinary committee supposedly set up by the local chapter of the APC in Ward C, Mushin Local Government held it’s sitting few days ago, with Banire refusing to show up.

The committee, headed by one Bolaji Abass, even ran into credibility crisis when Bunmi Church and Oredola Gabriel, APC chairman and secretary for the ward, denounced its set up and described its members as “impostors.”

The duo, in a petition forwarded to the party’s National Chairman, John Oyegun, asked the national secretariat to discard whatever report that may be generated by the committee.

That notwithstanding, the committee sat to entertain grievances of two members of the party who accused Banire of anti-party activities, refusal to attend ward meetings, and incitement against the party leadership, among other allegations.

The committee, Daily Trust gathered, will submit its report to the ward executive of the party which will pass it on to the local government executive. The local government executive will in turn pass it to the state party executive which is expected to act on the recommendations and likely pronounce Banire’s expulsion in the days ahead.