Ganduje can not be removed from office like Oshiomhole — APC

The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Felix Morka, has stated that it would be incorrect to compare the current travails of their National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, to the political intrigues that led to the removal of the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee from the party secretariat.

Felix Morka, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, made the statement while replying to queries about Ganduje’s suspension on Arise TV on Thursday.

Oshiomhole, the party’s former national chairman, and members of the then-NWC were elected to four-year terms (2018–2022) at a national convention in Abuja.

However, the party’s leadership was disbanded two years into their tenure, according to a former interim chairman of the APC, Ntufam Eta, who said the step was made to derail Bola Tinubu’s presidential ambitions.

In March 2020, a Federal High Court in the Federal Capital Territory ordered Oshiomhole to step down following a plea for an interlocutory injunction to remove him as APC national chairman.

Justice Danlami Senchi stated that the former Edo governor should be suspended pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

Senchi also claimed it was improper for the ruling party to keep Oshiomhole as chairman after he was suspended by his state APC chapter in November 2019.

Morka emphasised that the circumstances were not the same, despite concerns that Ganduje was moving in the same direction.

The APC’s media secretary stated that, unlike in Oshiomhole’s instance, those advocating for Ganduje’s suspension were not party members.

He said, “No, it is not familiar if you understand the facts of what happened to Oshiomhole. They are incomparable. They are two different things altogether. In the case of Oshiomhole, when he was the national chairman, the individuals who were involved in that effort to suspend him and take all the actions within the party were officials of the party.

“I know no one could have come out at that time to say these individuals are not legitimate officers of the party. So whether they were persuaded to do that or compromised, whether they were acting on their free will and volition, is a different conversation. And I am not going to speak to that. But they were members of the party.

“In this particular case in Kano, we’re seeing people that we know are not officials of the party. The man who purportedly read the suspension was physically at the party secretary on Wednesday to say he did not participate or authorise any lawyer to go to court to bring this action against the national chairman.

“So when the person whose identity is fully disclosed is the same individual who says he did not, then who the heck was the individual who went to court? That is the question.

“The difference here is that we have pure imposters announcing the suspension of our national chairman, and they have gone to court to attempt to affirm that same illegal and criminal act.

“So I just want to make sure that it is clear that these individuals are not authorised and are not acting on behalf of the ward. They need to stop because when the dust settles, there will be consequences for this sort of behaviour.”

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