There are concerns that the rising court cases against the ruling All Progressives Congress may affect the party’s national convention scheduled for February.
Sunday PUNCH gathered on Friday that aggrieved members from Lagos, Zamfara, Taraba and Kaduna states were either filing or threatening to file cases against the party leadership at both state and national levels.
There are currently no fewer than seven cases pending before the Federal High Court, Abuja challenging either the legitimacy of the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led party leadership or the outcome of decisions taken by the committee since its inauguration on June 25, 2020.
At the last count, there were crises in at least 13 state chapters of the party. The states include Lagos, Bauchi, Imo, Enugu, Plateau, Zamfara, Kwara, Gombe, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti and Taraba.
An investigation earlier carried out by The PUNCH revealed that there were at least five cases in various courts challenging the eligibility of the party leadership.
Of the five pending cases, three were initiated by members of the ruling party while the Peoples Democratic Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party each initiated one.
One of the cases filed by party members was instituted by Okosisi Ngwu, who asked the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory to sack the Buni-led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee and nullify all the actions it had so far taken, including the recent ward congresses.
The request formed part of the reliefs in a suit marked FCT/HC/CV/1824/2021.
In the light of these and other cases, a factional leader of the Zamfara State chapter of the APC, Senator Kabiru Marafa, in a telephone interview with Saturday PUNCH in Abuja on Friday, dismissed plans by the party to hold its national convention in February 2022.
He said, “We will advise Buni and members of his illegal committee not to waste scarce party funds in conducting another illegal act in the name of a national convention without doing the needful. Leaders of the APC in my state who were illegally removed from their leadership positions are already in court challenging that decision.
“Some of us are putting our papers together to challenge the very existence of the so-called Caretaker/Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee headed by Mai Mala Buni. The tenure of that illegal committee expired in June, the committee is still there acting illegally and causing trouble all over the place. Buni should take the path of honour and resign while he still has the chance.
“We are heading to court; let the court decide whether our constitution or the APC constitution has any provision allowing a serving governor to hold office and at the same time preside as (a party’s) national chairman. We will challenge every decision taken by this illegal committee since it came into office in June 2020.”
In response to a question on why he was resorting to litigation against a presidential directive asking party members to withdraw pending cases, he said, “Some people are deliberately twisting what Mr President (Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)said to suit themselves. President Buhari is not against people going to court to get justice. He went to court three times before. We have exhausted internal mechanisms to try to get our party at the national level to see reason but it has refused. We have written letters, sent delegations but nobody is listening.”
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