The Imo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris Kpotum, over the dissolution of the state executive of the party by the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole had, after a meeting of the National Working Committee of the party, announced the dissolution of the state executives, alongside those of Ogun State.
The chairman had alleged that they were loyal to their state governors, who had been at loggerheads with the party Headquarters over the non-recognition of their candidates as the party’s flag bearers for the 2019 governorship elections.
Soon after dissolution, Oshiomhole yesterday inaugurated a nine-member caretaker committee to be led by Hon. Marcellinus O. Nlemigbo for the Imo chapter of the party. The interim exco included Hon. Ugochukwu Nzekwe (Deputy Chairman), Lady Love Ineh (Secretary), Chief Linus Ineoha (Organising Secretary), Engr. Nicholas Osuagwu (Zonal Chairman), and Mrs. Josephine Nnorom (Women’s Leader).
Oshiomhole said he would flag off the governorship campaign for the Imo State candidate, Senator Hope Uzodinma, on Friday. But the embattled chairman of the party, Dan Nwafor, in a statement, yesterday, drew the attention of the IGP and party officials to a court order which restrained the National Working Committee from tampering with the executive of the party both at state and local government levels.
Nwafor described Oshiomhole’s action as not only illegal, ultra vires, but also usurping the powers of the executive as enshrined in the constitution of the party. He said the action was against the judgement of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, in suit number FCT/HC/BW/CU/103/2018 in the case between Evan Enwerem and APC and two others delivered on August 14, 2018.
The statement said, “The said illegal and unconstitutional action of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his NWC shall certainly elicit some hostile reactions from the affected officers (9,000) excluding their supporters and followers.”
Nwafor said the affected officers and their supporters whose rights had been “deliberately infringed upon without any charge or allegations against them and who were not heard at all, are now restive and may resort to self-help.”
Also, the APC chairman in Ogun State, Derin Adebiyi, yesterday rejected dissolution of the party executive as an exercise in futility. Adebiyi in a statement issued yesterday in Abeokuta, said the matter was sub judice, saying it was before a court of competent jurisdiction presided over by Hon. Justice Jude Okeke of the FCT High Court, Abuja.
According to him, the State chapter in a suit marked CV/363/2018, had sought for the protection of the court against attempts by the NWC to undermine it and abridge its tenure in any form.
Adebiyi further described the action as “a brazen disregard for the judiciary,” adding that what the Oshiomhole-led NWC did “amounts to self-help and bare-faced attempt to render nugatory the judicial powers granted the courts by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
