We Will Not Attend Natl Conference..APC Insist

The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) Friday reiterated its resolve to boycott the National Conference scheduled to be inaugurated in Abuja on March 17 by President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that there is a hidden agenda behind the conference.

 Also, the list of the 492 delegates to the National Conference released by the federal government on Thursday has continued to elicit mixed reactions across the country.

 The APC gave three reasons why it would not be officially represented at the National Conference when the party’s Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Muhammed said yesterday in Abuja.

 He said the decision not to send two names to fill the space allotted to the party was because it believed that there was a s hidden agenda behind the conference and that it was diversionary.

 Muhammed said apart from not having any genuine intentions, the party feels that the present administration lacked credibility to organise a National Conference whose outcome could be trusted.

 According to the APC spokesman, the party does not also accept the modalities set out by Federal Government, “especially the fact that the conference is not sovereign and will have its decisions subjected to further debates by the National Assembly.”

He continued: “We, APC will never send delegates to the National Conference as it will not meet the expectations of Nigerians. Although, the party is not attending, we have decided not to allow the party’s partisanship affect the states under our control because the governors represent other entities outside of the party.

 For this reason, our governors were allowed to send delegates to represent state interests at the conference.”

The party spokesman insisted that the party had not shifted grounds from its earlier stand not to participate in the conference but only gave its governors the go ahead to protect state interest at the conference.

 It was gathered that following reports that the Presidency had allegedly perfected plans to use its initiative to appoint surrogates as delegates to replace the slots meant for the APC controlled states, the APC governors rallied to put pressure on the party to shift ground on the matter.

 A reliable source yesterday said that the APC leaders met on the issue and agreed that its state governors could go ahead and nominate delegates to attend the conference.