N’East APC set to invoke Oshiomhole’s suspension
Trouble may not yet be over for the embattled National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Cimrade Adams Oshiomhole, as the Northeast caucus of the party has threatened to invoke the suspension placed on the former labour leader by the Efo State chapter of the party.
Ogun-Lagos Border Towns team backs GNI on move to join APC
This was as the meeting of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) held on Tuesday at the party’s national secretariat ended in near fiasco.
Storming out of the meeting, membets of the Northeast zone berated Oshiomhole for attempting to foist a candidate for the position of National Secretary on the Northeast zone.
The chairman’s action was condemned for negating internal democratic norms of the party and contrary to the previous order that the zone should produce a candidate to fill the posituon vacated by Mallan Mai Mala Buni upon his election as Governor of Yobe State on March 9 last year.
Speaking on behalf of the Northeast caucus of APC, the party’s National Vice Chairman, North- East, Mustapha Salihu, accused Oshiomhole of taking unilateral decisions which are injurious to the growth of APC and has caused the party serious losses in the past.
He faulted Oshiomhole’s claim during the meeting that President Muhammadu Buhari had endused the candidature of Arch. Waziri Bulama from Borno State as party’s scribe.
According to him, the national leadership of the party has micro – zoned the position to the northeast which narrowed the contest down to Barrister Muhamned Bello Mustapha from Taraba State, Waziri Bulama from Borno and Dr. Garba Abari, current Director General of National Orietation Agency from Yobe State.
He said the Northeast caucus just on Monday agreed at a meeting in Abuja to narrow the contest between Borno and Yobe states.
In view of the foregoing, Salihu said the northeast caucus has to revisit the suspension order on Oshiomhole by the Edo State chapter of APC which he claimed has not been vacated by any court order.
To him, the national chairman remains suspended and all actions he takes since the suspension including convening Tuesday’s meeting remain null and void.
Addressing newsmen after storming out of the meeting, Salihu said: “I am here just to give you a brief of what transpired just now, the illegality that just transpired now. This has been prevalent in this party since Adams Oshiomhole took over.
“Yesterday I held my zonal meeting and we agreed on how to go about the position of National Secretary. Behold, today (yesterday) Adams Oshiomhole ordained someone and said he is going to be the National Secretary.
“I want to tell you this is an illegality because of two things, number one: this party has set precedence. Babachir left, I replaced him from Adamawa State, Lai Mohammed left Bolaji replaced him from Kwara, and Bolaji left Onilu replaced him from Kwara State.
“But this is not to say there is no room for consensus. There is serious discussion going on between Borno and Yobe for them to be able to harmonise and come up with a Secretary. We had a meeting on Monday and agreed that the two states should go and meet.
“I spoke with Borno Governor this (Tuesday) morning that I will be in Borno on Friday and consult with them and proceed to Yobe and by Monday will come up with a name. I am not the type of person that will sit and watch illegality. NEC positions are like Ministerial positions and are shared across the states.
“As we speak, Borno has a NEC position, who is now Acting Auditor who is presently occupying his substantive position as Deputy National Auditor while the only National Working Committee Yobe has is National Secretary. If there is need for them to cede to Borno, there must be consultation. The person who is duly elected at the convention must resign voluntarily and cede his own seat to Yobe so that Yobe will not be annihilated in the NEC position.
“That is what I canvassed but the Chairman as usual wants to perpetuate his illegality, just the way he did in Zamfara, in other States where we lost, he is still trying to go ahead and said he has adopted Bulama as National Secretary which is nullity because it didn’t follow the constitutional procedure.
“What he told us was that it was the President that mentioned Bulama’s name but I know it is not true, the President is not known to do unconstitutional things but he keeps dropping name each time he wants to do illegality but this time around, we are going to resist it.
“Secondly, I have seen a subsisting court order somewhere, where is been gotten from the party from Edo, they followed the procedure of suspension from his ward, local government, state and his suspension was announced and court upheld it.
“As I am standing here I have not seen any court that is vacating that subsisting court order. So I am not recognising him as National Chairman, he doesn’t have the right to call for any meeting.
“Finally, the party organs that are allowed to do this kind of assignment are normally Executive organs. Where are the resolutions from all these executive positions that necessitated National Working Committee to take decisions? That’s how we said we have suspended Amosun, we don’t have right to suspend anybody. It is only the executive arms that have right to suspend – all these we did ab initio was a nullity.
“We also want to follow up with the suspension of the National Chairman, to know the status, whether or not, as we speak, he is fit to be a National Chairman or whether that court order is still subsisting which before the end of today, I will let you know. I will find out if there is any court order that vacates it, then is okay. If there is no court that vacate it, I will produce the subsisting court order for you for publication and will write to INEC, the DSS, he should not be recognised as the National Chairman”.
You must be logged in to post a comment.