Tinubu-backed NWC rejects Buhari’s illegal dissolution, ready to sue NEC

Hours after its dissolution by President Muhammadu Buhari during the APC NEC meeting on Thursday, the party’s NWC is preparing for a legal battle to tackle the president and his decision.

According to the NWC, the NEC meeting convened by the self-appointed Ag. National Chairman Victor Giadom was illegal. The Hillard Eta-led committee said the former deputy secretary had no authority to call for such meeting.

Buhari had claimed he had good legal advice before he backed the Giadom one-man NWC. But many, including one of the president’s associates, Prof. Itse Sagay, believe the advice was ‘mischievous’.

The NWC was initially headed by the late southwest national vice chairman Abiola Ajimobi, and it was composed of excos loyal to the suspended chairman Adams Oshiomhole and his major backer Bola Tinubu, the party national leader.

In a statement the NWC issued Thursday evening, the group said it already began consultation with stakeholders and lawyers for necessary court action.

This seems a defiance of the resolution by Buhari–that all litigation, past, present, and future, should be put on hold.

Litigation has become ten a penny in the ruling party, and it’s mostly a battle royale in the APC where the tail wags the dog.  National excos can be hurled out of the party from the ward level—as it happened to Oshiomhole; and a low-ranking deputy can sue for the top job in the national committee—as it favoured Giadom.

In the spiraling confusion that engulfs the party, some critics have urged the NWC to take the plunge: expel Buhari from the NEC or the party.

“I want the Tinubu faction of the APC led by Ajimobi to suspend president Buhari from the party if he goes ahead to attend Gaidom’s NEC. I want them to be courageous,” said Deji Adeyanju, the convener of Concerned Nigerians.

Also at the Thursday NEC meeting Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, embattled Deputy National Secretary of APC, Victor Giadom and some members of the APC National Working Committee, NWC

Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, has been appointed as Caretaker Committee chairman of the APC.