The Will Nigeria
There is uneasy calm within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the cause of this is a recent court judgment that disqualified Governor Gboyega Oyetola, as the APC candidate in the July 2022 governorship election in the state because Buni, who submitted his name to INEC, violated the provisions of Section 183 of the Constitution and Section 82(3) of the Electoral Act 2022.
Oyetola in the said election was the incumbent governor and the candidate of the APC . He lost the election to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke.
Oyetola is currently at the Election Petition Tribunal to challenge Adeleke’s victory in the election. But the process of recovering his alleged mandate was dampened by a court judgement that annulled his candidature.
The PDP, Nigeria’s main opposition party, as a follow up to the judgement has also approached a Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking the disqualification of Bola Tinubu and all candidates of the APC for the 2023 general election.
The PDP also asked the court to sack all the members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC.
The Abdullahi Adamu-led NWC took over the affairs of APC after the party’s national convention in March this year.
It would be recalled that the Supreme Court first raised the alarm in its judgement which it delivered on July 27,2021 in a suit filed by Eyitayo Jegede, the candidate of the PDP in the Ondo 2020 governorship election against the victory of Rotimi Akeredolu of the APC, which came with a split margin of 4 to 3.
The majority judgment of the Supreme Court was silent on the implications of Buni being joined in the case, but the minority judgment presented by Justice Mary Odili made it very clear that Buni functioning as APC Caretaker Committee chairman and at the same time serving as executive governor of a state was a violation of the Constitution.
Section 183 expressly states that: “The Governor shall not, during the period he holds office, hold any other executive office or paid employment in any capacity whatsoever.”
After the judgement, some lawyers in the APC, who saw the danger in keeping the Buni-led interim leadership in office, called for an end to Buni’s reign. One of them is the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, who suggested that for the party to avoid grave danger, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party should meet and reconstitute the Caretaker Committee to exclude, not only Buni, but also anyone holding any executive position in any government establishment as stipulated in Article 17 of the APC Constitution…
