A former National Vice Chairman and ex-acting chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Mister Hilliard Eta, has dragged the party before a Federal High Court in Abuja asking it to nullify the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the party and declare him as the Acting National Chairman of the party.
The National Executive Committee of the APC had at its meeting held at the Presidential Villa on June 25, dissolved the party’s National Working Committee, led by the then suspended National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. At the meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, NEC set up the caretaker committee and appointed the Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, as the chairman of the committee.
Listed as defendants in the suit are Mai Mala Buni in his capacity as chairman of the caretaker committee; John Akpan Udoedehe as the National Secretary; as well as Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State, Governor Sani Bello of Niger State, and Stella Okotete, as members of the committee. The plaintiffs joined the Independent National Electoral Commission as the sixth defendant.
The plaintiffs argued among others that by virtue of Section 183 of the Nigerian Constitution and Article 17 (iv) of the constitution of the APC, it was an illegality and a void act for a person to hold an executive office in the government simultaneously with an office in any organ of the APC at any level, in whatever capacity.
