Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, said the court-ordered suspension of Adams Oshiomhole as national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) has ushered in a new dawn in the state chapter of the party.
Obaseki said with the court ruling, peace has returned to the party and the crisis rocking the party has finally been laid to rest.
According to him, the court has spoken the mind of the majority members of the party that have been calling for the sack of the national chairman as he lacked the capacity to lead the party in the country.
“I had on several occasions called on the party’s national chairman to publicly disown those that paraded themselves as members of Edo People’s Movement but he refused to call them to order. If not, we won’t have gone to this level,” Obaseki said at the Edo South senatorial party meeting in Benin City, the state capital.
A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court sitting in Jabi, Abuja, had on Wednesday ordered the suspension of Oshiomhole as APC national chairman.
The suspension order is sequel to a suit filed by Mustapha Salihu, national vice chairman, North East, of the ruling APC, Anselm Ojezua, chairman of the party in Edo State, and others seeking to remove Oshiomhole from office.
The temporary suspension order is pending the determination of the substantive suit.
Justice Danlami Senchi, in giving the order, asked Oshiomhole to step down as national chairman of the party.
The court ordered Oshiomole to stop parading himself as chairman of the party until all issues relating to the chairmanship position are resolved. It also urged the APC to desist from acknowledging Oshiomhole as chairman of the party and refuse him access to the national secretariat of the party.
Reacting to the judgment, Ojezua said the court has vindicated the position of the party members in the state who wanted Oshiomhole out.
“This is not the time to celebrate. For us, it a very sad commentary. We helped to put this man in office. The likelihood that a man could abuse his office was so manifest that we feared that the very tenets of democracy were threatened,” Ojezua said while answering questions on a Channels TV programme monitored by BusinessDay on Wednesday.
“The tenets of democracy have been served. No man is god. What the court has done provides for the basis for the reconciliation that we seek. It allows now to prepare for the crucial election that is imminent now. Our position has now been vindicated by a competent court,” he said.
Meanwhile, the APC National Working Committee has indicated that it would validate Oshiomhole’s suspension as national chairman.
Victor Giadom, APC acting national secretary, said the party was aware of the injunction and would respect the court orders. ”Very soon the National Working Committee will meet and you will hear further from the party. I am trying to say that the All Progressives Congress will respect all lawful court orders. We will soon do that,” he said. Asked whether he meant that Oshiomhole was on suspension, Giadom said “there is a court injunction and it is binding on us as a party to respect all the court injunctions”. He declined comments on possible replacement of Oshiomhole as it was not within his powers and denied an ongoing NWC meeting in the Aso Drive residence of Oshiomhole. BusinessDay gathered that police in about 10 patrol vans and an armoured personnel carrier (APC) have been stationed around APC national secretariat for the fear of outbreak of violence. But expressing a contrary view, Samson Osagie, former minority whip in the House of Representatives, said the purported court order was made out of mischief and not supported by any known principles or law.
“The facts before the judge are not enough for him to review that order. I think the judge mainly succumbed to political pressure from Governor Godwin Obaseki and his cohorts to inconvenience the APC. There is no way that order can stand in appeal because there is no basis for it at all,” Osagie said.
“In any case, the suspension of the national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has procedures it has to follow and that procedures have not been complied to. Then what is now the basis upon which the judge granted his order. The order is baseless and cannot stand at all,” he said.
IDRIS MOMOH, CHURCHILL OKORO (Benin), FELIX OMOHOMHION & JAMES KWEN (Abuja)
