By Abimbola Ogunnaike
The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Felix Morka, has said it would be wrong for anybody to liken the current travail 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.
Morka stated this while responding to questions surrounding Ganduje’s suspension on Arise TV on Thursday, 18 April, 2024.
Oshiomhole, a former National Chairman of the party, and members of then NWC were elected into office for four years (2018 – 2022) at a National Convention in Abuja.
But the leadership of the party was dissolved two years into their tenure, an action that a former acting chairman of the APC, Ntufam Eta, claimed was taken to derail the presidential ambition of Bola Tinubu (now president).
A Federal High Court in the Federal Capital Territory had in March 2020 asked Oshiomhole to step aside following an application of interlocutory injunction seeking his removal as APC national chairman.
Justice Danlami Senchi had stated that the former Edo governor should remain suspended pending the determination of the suit.
Senchi also said it was wrong of the ruling party to have kept Oshiomhole as chairman after he was suspended by his state APC chapter in November 2019.
Reacting to the apprehension that Ganduje may be heading in the same direction, Morka insisted that the situations were different.
The APC Publicity Secretary said that unlike what happened in Oshiomhole’s case, those pushing for Ganduje’s suspension were not recognised members of the party.
“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 nor authorise any lawyer to go to court to bring this action against the national chairman. So when the person that is fully disclosed by identity is the same individual saying 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 had gone to court to attempt to affirm that same illegal and criminal act. So I just want to make sure that that is clear that these individuals are not authorized and not acting foreign on behalf of the ward. They need to stop because when the dust settles; there will be consequences for this sort of behavior,” he said.
