The National Vice Chairman North East of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Mustapha, has dismissed the Kano High Court ruling which reinstated Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the party’s national chairman.
While reacting to the order for reinstatement, Mustapha told newsmen that the earlier order of Justice Senchi could only be vacated by a Court of Appeal as he noted that both the Kano high court and the FCT high court were courts of coordinate jurisdiction.
Following the confusion in the party, Oshiohmole paid President Muhammadu Buhari a visit at the State House to update him on the activities of the party, including his suspension and subsequent reinstatement by separate Court.
Oshiohmole, who spoke to State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with the President, expressed optimism that God would see him through the current legal and political upheaval, describing himself as “a child of light who will always defeat darkness’’.
He said: “I thought that I had a duty to brief Mr President as the overall leader of our party about this development. Incidentally, when I requested the audience yesterday, I wasn’t sure what has happened today will happen.
“But I had a duty to inform him about the court order. But happily before coming here, the order from a Federal High Court that has made nonsense of what the FCT court purported to have done has already settled the question.
“And I showed to the president the resolutions of my ward even though a ward executive does not have the powers to remove a national chairman, just to say that the document that we have says clearly that my ward passed a vote of confidence on me.
“How the court holds a vote of confidence and twist it to me as a vote of no confidence, only that judge can explain it to himself.
“But the good news is that this is not a final court nor is it the only court, incidentally it is just the court that didn’t have the jurisdiction even to listen to this matter. And our lawyers so pointed it out but the judge was determined to oblige those who want to destabilise the All Progressive Congress.’’
Oshiomhole, who fingered a serving minister and some governors as being behind his ordeal in the party, allegedly accused Edo State Governor and some of his supporters of jubilating over the Wednesday’s FCT High Court ruling.
“Let me also say that those behind this plot, the hands you saw which include as you saw yesterday; you saw the Edo State governor and his people jubilating.
“But that is the irony of life that you will help give birth to a child and the child look for cutlass to want to chop off your neck,’’ he lamented.
However, Oshiomhole’s meeting with the president came after the Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi, had met with President Muhammadu Buhari.
