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The National Secretary of the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe, has disclosed that the nationwide ward congress to elect party executives will still hold as scheduled on July 31, 2021.
TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo (SAN) had in a statement on Wednesday urged the party to shelve its planned congresses and national convention to avoid a ‘top to bottom’ destruction from the judiciary.
Keyamo was reacting to the Supreme Court judgement of Wednesday, July 28, 2021 that narrowly upheld the election of the incumbent governor, Rotimi Akeredolu in a suit filed by candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his major opponent in the 2020 governorship election in the state, Eyitayo Jegede (SAN).
The senior advocate, who said he was offering his “professional bit to the party,” explained that: “The little technical point that saved Governor Akeredolu was that Jegede failed to join Mai Mala Buni in the suit.”
He added: “Jegede was challenging the competence of Buni as a sitting governor to run the affairs of the APC as chairman of the caretaker committee. He contends that this is against Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution, which states that a sitting governor shall not, during the period when he holds office, hold any other executive office or paid employment in any capacity whatsoever. In other words, had Buni been joined in the suit, the story may have been different today as we would have lost Ondo State to the PDP.”
He then warned: “Any other person affected by the actions of the Buni-led Committee will henceforth, not fail to join him in any subsequent case in court. These include any subsequent election matter in any part of this country and all the APC congresses that are about to hold. The Supreme Court has just weaponised all those that would be aggrieved by the APC Congresses to proceed to court to challenge the competence of the Buni-led CECPC to organise the Congresses and national convention.”
Keyamo said the APC should terminate the plans to hold its ward congresses on Saturday.
However, in a statement by the National Secretary of the party’s caretaker committee, Sen. Akpanudoedehe, ward Congress Committees of the Party has already been inaugurated and delegated with the responsibility of conducting, supervising, monitoring the scheduled Ward Congresses.
He said the clarification is against the backdrop of personal opinions being expressed by some individuals on the status of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) and its capacity to conduct the Congresses.
“While it is not our intention to join issues with these commentators, the Supreme Court’s Wednesday judgement affirming the Election victory of the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) had no bearing on the CECPC’s status and its membership.
“Party members and aspirants should therefore come out en masse and peacefully to participate in the ward Congresses, come Saturday”, he added.