APC crisis deepens as sacked Oshiomhole-led NWC sues caretaker committee

Crisis in the ruling All Progressives Congress may have deepened as a former National Vice Chairman and ex-acting chairman of the party, Hilliard Eta, has gone to court, asking to be declared the acting national chairman of the party.

He is asking a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to nullify the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the party.

The National Executive Committee of the APC had at its meeting at the Presidential Villa on June 25, 2020 dissolved the party’s National Working Committee led by the then national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.

The NEC, at the meeting presided over by the President Muhammadu Buhari set up the caretaker committee and appointed the Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, to head the committee.

Eta on November 26, 2020 filed a fresh suit challenging the dissolution of the Oshiomhole-led NWC.

He sought an order to restrain the Buni-led committee from taking any further steps on behalf of the party including holding the party’s convention.

The suit was instituted on his behalf by his lawyer, Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), with the APC made the first plaintiff and Eta the second.

Those listed as defendants in the suit are Buni as chairman of the caretaker committee; John Akpan Udoedehe as the National Secretary; as well as Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State; Governor Sani Bello of Niger State, and Stella Okotete, as members of the committee.

The plaintiffs joined the Independent National Electoral Commission as the sixth defendant.

The plaintiffs argued among others that by virtue of Section 183 of the Nigerian Constitution and Article 17 (iv) of the constitution of the APC, it was an illegality and a void act for a person to hold an executive office in the government simultaneously with an office in any organ of the APC at any level, in whatever capacity.

They also argued that by virtue of same Section 183 of the Nigerian Constitution, Article 17 (i) and (iv) and 20 (i) (a) of the APC constitution, the purported removal of the duly elected officers of the party on June 25, 2020, was void and did not affect the rights of the duly elected officers of the APC to continue with the discharge of the duties for which they were elected.

In an affidavit deposed to by Etagbo Eta in support of the originating summons, the NWC had reacted to the proposed illegal meeting in a document captioned “Press Statement by the APC NWC,” clearly expressing that the proposed meeting violated the APC  Constitution.

He explained that the 1st to 5th defendants (members of the Buni-led committee) and those who projected them were duly alerted of the illegality of their act, yet they persisted in such illegality and willful disregard of the organic document of the 1st plaintiff.

He expressed the concern that INEC “no longer deals” with the duly elected executive of the APC but on the contrary recognised the 1st to 5th defendants in all matters concerning the 1st plaintiff, which contravenes the constitution of APC.