The All Progressives Congress (APC) has, in documents filed
before the Federal High Court in Abuja by its lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN),
explained that the sack of the Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC)
was informed by the needs to end the various internal crises that pervaded the
party’s rank and file.
In a counter-affidavit it filed against a suit, marked:
FHC/ABJ/ CS/736/2020 by Kalu Agu, who claimed to be a member of the party in
Abia State, the APC said the crises that had characterized its affairs ended
immediately the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, led by
Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni was put in place.
The APC contended that the suit filed by Agu was designed to
destabilize the party’s current peace building and reconciliation efforts.
APC further said that Buni and other members of its National
Caretaker Committee are eminently qualified for their appointment and pleaded
with the court to dismiss the suit.
Agu had filed a suit challenging the June 25, 2020 decision
by the APC to sack the Oshiomhole-led NWC.
The APC also wants the court to reject a motion by Agu,
seeking to have the case heard during its ongoing vacation and to abridge
parties’ time to file their processes faulting Agu’s claim that the suit was
pre-election in nature and ought to be determined within 180 days.
APC’s lawyer Fagbemi argued that the suit has no particular
life span adding that the subject of the suit did not relate to any particular
election.
Justice Taiwo Taiwo has scheduled ruling for September 18 on
whether or not the case could be heard during the court’s ongoing long
vacation.
Other defendants in the suit are the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), Governor Buni, Isiaka Oyebola, Ken Nnamani, Stella
Okorete, Governor Sank Bello, Dr James Lalu, Senator Abubakar Yusuf, Hon
Akinyemi Olaide, David Leon, Professor Their Mamman, Isiaka Ahmed and Senator
John Akpanudoedehe.
The plaintiff in the suit, contended that the party’s
constitution guarantees four year tenure for its officials, and that in breach
of the same constitution, APC’s NEC, at a meeting on June 25, 2020, at the
presidential villa Abuja, “passed an illegal and unlawful resolution dissolving
the NWC and setting up an illegal caretaker committee of the NWC.”
According to Agu, members of APC’s NWC had barely spent two
years out of their four years in office before they were purportedly dissolved
by the NEC.
Consequently, he prayed the court to declare the dissolution
of the NWC as unconstitutional, illegal, null and void and another declaration
that the recognition accorded the caretaker committee is unconstitutional and
illegal.
Agu also wants the court to restrain the National Caretaker
Committee from putting into effect the resolution of the APC’s NEC meeting
passed on June 25, 2020, and to restrain INEC from recognizing, dealing with or
relating with the caretaker committee in whatever guise to usurp the functions
of the NWC.
Additionally, Agu wants the court to compel INEC to continue
to recognize members of the sacked Oshiomhole-led NWC as the authentic national
officers of the party and to strike down Article 17 of the APC’s constitution,
which provided for the appointment of officers into the organs of the party,
for being inconsistent with Section 223 of the 1999 Constitution and Section 85
of the Electoral Act of 2010.
CAN AN IGBO PERSON PONTIFICATE FROM ASOROCK AS NIGERIAN PRESIDENT?
ReplyDeleteBy Harry Fanon
The above question will qualify for a good PhD research topic but the answer is a near impossibility because of the systemic and structural deprivations against the South East.
The ancient South Eastern states are not seriously desiring the presidency come 2023. The reason is because they know it is as difficult as climbing mountain Kilimanjaro or that the Igbos are dividend on total secession, restructuring or regional autonomy. These options are not democratically possible because power is taken and not given.
However that may be, Ndi Igbo are yet to comfront the Nigerian nation in demand for equity or at best demanding the Federal Character tenets and application of quota principles for Igbo presidency.
You could recall that the North caused fear upon the person Jonathan that made him to abdicate the election he clearly won in 2015. In 1999 the South West used Afenifere to scare the rest of us and Obasanjo became the president to assuage the evils of 1993 election of MKO Abiola mandate
The Igbos will need to shake the Status quo and make other ethnic groups to cede the presidency to the Igbos in 2023 in the spirit of justice, equity, quota system and principles of Federal Character.
Yours sincerely,
Harry Fanon is a philosopher and jurisprudence attorney writing from his Ahiazu Cave.
PRAGMATISM, REALISM OR IDEALISM: THE EMEKA NWAJIUBA PRESIDENCY OF IGBO EXTRACTION
ReplyDelete-By Harry Fanon-
Realism and idealism are both problematic either epistemologically or as political tenets. Realism is not necessarily tangibility but it is also an abstract conceptualism. On the other hand, idealism can transubstantiatively become reality in the physicality of being.
For the above reason, political pragmatism on whether Hon.Emeka Nwajiuba or any other Igbo person succeeds Buhari, it should transcends party systemic structure but emphasise the igboness at the citadel of power in Nigerian equation.
It is just fair that an Igbo person pontificates from Aso Rock as national equality so as to reflect Federal Character/and or quota principles and equity. Justice incubates fairness but equality is not necessarily fairness.
Going by the principles behind federal character as enshrined in our leprostic constitution substantiated in quota system, presidency of an Igbo extraction is a constitutional right. To make this demand possible, Ndi Igbo should persuasively negotiate across party lines for the zoning of the presidency to the South East Igbos.
By any means necessary, Ndi Igbo should seek ways to become president come 2023. It is in this context that Political pragmatism is unified.
By Harry Fanon is a philosopher and jurisprudence attorney writing from his Ahiazu Cave (hfanon@yahoo.com).