*It’s criminal, says Mustapha, dismisses Kano court ruling
The leadership crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) got messier as members of its National Working Committee were sharply divided over the purported nomination of three new national officers.
This was as the National Vice Chairman (North East), Salihu Mustapha said it is a criminal offence for any member of the NWC to nominate national officers without following due process as stipulated in the party’s constitution.
National Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa – Onilu had on Wednesday in a statement said that the NWC has approved the nomination of Waziri Bulama as acting national secretary, Senator Abiola Ajimobi as acting deputy national chairman (south) and Paul Chukwuma as national auditor.
Issa -Onilu claimed that the decision was reached on January 14, during a meeting of the NWC at the party’s secretariat.
Reacting at a press chat on Thursday, Mustapha described the purported nomination as a ruse and criminal act, stating that the announcement of some party officers by Onilu is laughable, very pathetic and disturbing.
“The announcement that purported that we approved nominations of three officers on January 14, one of these officers which is the deputy chairman south, even the nomination from his state came to the national vice chairman on February 28, almost 40 days after the date of the purported meeting.
“The meeting we had on January 14, I came out of the meeting and I told you guys that the meeting was stopped because they were trying to do illegality on only the national secretary; the matter of the other people was referred to the zone, nobody discusses it,” he asserted.
Describing the act as criminal, Mustapha said that “but seeing that he (Oshiomhole) has been suspended, he now had to bring out that information. I don’t think it is a civil matter, I think our lawyers are looking at it because it is a criminal matter
“I am a working committee member and I was not in the meeting, where is the minutes of the meeting, where was it held? And how do we approve a nomination that is yet to come; we are not running a banana republic. This is a party and not a block industry or a motor -park
“Our lawyers are looking at it and if we find any criminal act, we will prosecute.”
Commenting on the Kano High Court ruling on the stay of execution over Wednesday’s FCT High Court sacking of Oshiomhole as APC national chairman, he dismissed the judgement, saying that it cannot stand.
“First of all I want be very brief because we have a case in court and I am a plaintiff, so I don’t want to be guilty of sub-judice.
“But, I want to tell you from my knowledge of law that two courts of coordinate jurisdiction cannot sit on appeal on an order or judgement given by each other,
“A Federal High Court cannot sit on appeal on FCT High Court.
The only court that has the jurisdiction to sit an appeal is the court of appeal in this case and the court order of the FCT High Court was served yesterday.
“Most of you have the copy of order and it is an elementary law that first in time prevails, that of Abuja High Court came earlier and we seek for interlocutory injunction and there is affidavit of urgency which seek to prevail certain kinds of mischief which we prayed that the court should help prevail which they did.
“So, If you look at the main reason why that introductory letter is granted I don’t think that a federal high court of the same jurisdiction will now come and set it aside.
“We don’t need the knowledge of law to know that a high court cannot sit on a matter of appeal in high court.
So, I don’t want to say much about the order but I want to say that it is only the court of appeal that can vacate this injunction.
“As you can see, we are in the secretariat and we are running the affairs of the party. So, the suspension still prevails until the hearing of the matter or there is any contrary order from the court of appeal.
When asked if the NWC doing anything to replace Oshiomhole, Mustapha said it is not the duty of the NWC to source for replacement instead the NWC looks at the day to day affairs of the party.
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