However, in a swift reaction, the presidency said the ACN cannot limit the movement of the president.
The ACN said the timing of the president's visit and the attendant disruption of traffic in the city may be seen as a continuation of perceived attempts by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led federal government to frustrate the merger of the party with other progressive parties, which is a key item on the agenda of its national convention.
In a protest letter addressed to the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, and signed by a member of the convention planning committee, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, the party said the president's visit to Lagos was most likely to cause traffic chaos because of the shutting down of key arterial roads in the city.
"We write to convey our concerns to Your Excellency on the implication of the planned visit to Lagos on April 18 of President Jonathan. As Your Excellency is very much aware, the national convention of our party, will hold on the same day at the Onikan Stadium in Lagos. Adequate notice of the convention has been given through the media and other channels," it said.
ACN said if nothing was done to re-schedule the presidential trip, it might lead to frustration and provocation on the part of party supporters, who would have travelled hundreds of kilometres from their destinations.
"The implication of what will be perceived as a calculated attempt to disrupt the convention and by extension the merger, combined with the frustration that many of our supporters who have travelled from far distances will feel for not being able to easily access the venue of the convention, and this may lead to a breach of peace, the consequences of which no one will be able to fathom," he said.
"We are concerned that based on precedence, the visit of the president may lead to the closure of key arterial roads in the city, which could prevent thousands of our supporters coming to Lagos from all parts of the federation from making it to the venue of the convention.
"We are therefore appealing to Your Excellency to use your good offices to advise the president to either reschedule his visit or use a mode of intra-city transportation, like helicopter, that will not engender the closure of roads on a very busy day in the city.
"We are very sure that even the president would not want to subject his compatriots to avoidable suffering just because of a visit that can either be rescheduled or carried out in an unobtrusive manner on a gridlock-prone day," the party added.
But speaking with journalists Wednesday, the Senior Special Assistant to the president on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, said it was of irresponsible for the party to ask Fashola to stop the president from coming to Lagos because of its national convention.
According to Okupe: “The presidency views the letter from the National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, with shock to the extent that the movement of the president should be restricted because of the ACN’s national convention.
“The president is a symbol of national unity and sovereignty and nobody can by any means restrict or limit his movement. The letter by Mohammed shows lack of respect and decorum for the office of the president.
“It is difficult to understand how the ACN can wish to limit the movement of the president in the state, which is part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that he presides over,” Okupe said, explaining that the action of the ACN scribe is archaic, bedeviled and uncouth.
The presidential aide said by the behaviour, conduct and utterances of Mohammed, he ought not to have been the spokesperson of a political party.
He stated that by Mohammed’s behaviour and utterances, he shows that he did not know his limit.
Okupe called on Nigerians to condemn the action of both Mohammed and his party, because the president is the symbol of unity of the country and sovereignty.
Also responding to the ACN’s letter to Fashola, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Rueben Abati, said it was unbelievable for any patriotic and right-thinking Nigerian to have written such a letter.
Abati said the allegation was a deliberate attempt by the party to undermine, ridicule and debase the office of the president.
He said a courteous and simple discussion of the potential conflict of programmes with the appropriate officials of the presidency would have sufficed to inform the ACN and its officials that the president was only transiting through Lagos on his way to the inauguration of the WEMPCO Cold Roll Steel Plant in Ibafo, Ogun State.
“We find it hard to believe that any patriotic and right-thinking Nigerian would have written such publicly circulated letter reportedly sent to Fashola by Mohammed in which he attempted to dictate President Jonathan’s itinerary, mode of transportation within Lagos, and motive, and even suggests that the president’s visit could have been designed to frustrate a planned ACN’s convention and merger with some other political parties, he said.
“The allegation is not only baseless, but another in the series of ‘wolf crying’ that has become the sole strategy and pre-occupation of the ACN. It is clearly a deliberate, further attempt to undermine, ridicule and debase the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We have no doubts whatsoever therefore that Governor Fashola will prove to be much wiser and more mature than the ACN spokesman, and consign his letter to the dustbin.”
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