Calls for Banire’s expulsion get messier as APC protesters storm Alausa

The calls for immediate expulsion of the All Progressives Congress national legal adviser, Muiz Banire, over alleged anti-party activities have gotten messier.

Thousands of the party’s members from Mushin Local Government and Odi-Olowo Local Council Development Area, LCDA, on Tuesday stormed the Lagos House, House of Assembly and APC secretariat, demanding for the immediate sack of Banire.

The protesters who caused heavy traffic as their activities temporarily brought businesses around Alausa area to a halt, accused Banire of involving in diverse anti-party activities.

Not minding the heavy downpour, they chanted solidarity songs in their demands and further called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to prosecute Banire for allegedly bribing a judge.

The protesting APC members in a petition addressed to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the Speaker Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa and the state party chairman, Mr Henry Ajomale in Ikeja, listed 17 alleged atrocities that Banire committed.

The alleged atrocities they said warrant his immediate expulsion from the party.

The protesters were led by a chieftain of the party in the area, Mr Femi Martins, who told newsmen that the call for Banire’s sack became necessary following several excesses and public utterances by the party’s national legal adviser.

They claimed the utterances were targeted at causing public disaffection and electoral misfortune against APC, especially during the forthcoming local government election in the state.

“Enough is Enough, Banire Must Go; Banire, Custodian of Party Destruction; Banire, The Greatest Beneficiary of Imposition; Banire, A Hypocrite Per Excellence; Banire, The Modern-Day Judas Iscariot; Banire, A Serial Traitor; Banire Is Unqualified To Teach Us Democracy,” read some of the writings on the placards the protesters were carrying.

Some of the atrocities the group levelled against Banire include, sponsoring cronies to write and cause to publish advertorials against the party, that he wrote and caused to be published negative correspondence against the party in the media, granting interviews to embarrass and have adverse effect on the party to the extent of attracting hatred, contempt, ridicule and disrepute, intentionally negligent in duties as the national legal adviser to defend the party and the party’s interest.

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Meanwhile, Banire, in a statement made available to newsmen and signed by himself described the protesters as a rented crowd.

He said that as the custodian of the party’s constitution he would not sit, watch and allow candidates chosen by the people replaced overnight by candidates preferred by the political godfathers.

“It has come to my attention that a rent-a-crowd rally was being organised by one Mr. Seye Oladejo, former chairman of Mushin Local Government and the current special assistant to the governor of Lagos State on the Environment with the assistance of some elements to destroy the democratic aspirations of the people,’’ he said.

The protest is the culmination of other calls by some members of the party before now for the suspension and sack of Banire for same alleged anti-party activities.

 

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