APGA AND THE APPEAL COURT RULING

The Court of Appeal sitting in Kano, on Tuesday, ended the leadership squabble in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), when it quashed the verdict of the Jigawa State High Court that had affirmed Jude Okeke as the national chairman of the party against Victor Oye, who was duly elected in May 2019 for a second term of four years.

The appellate court justices, in their judgement, unanimously disagreed with the lower court, which directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to acknowledge Okeke’s faction, pronouncing that it had no territorial jurisdiction to entertain the case in the first place. Led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, they reportedly declared Okeke and his group as “meddlesome interlopers” and asked the electoral body not to accord recognition to their faction.

In laying claims to APGA leadership, Oye and Okeke had conducted separate primaries for the Anambra State governorship election holding on November 6, 2021. While the Oye camp produced Professor Charles Soludo, erstwhile Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, as the party’s candidate, Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji, a serving member of House of Representatives, emerged from the Okeke’s group.

The Okeke group sprang up recently in June this year and announced the purported suspension of Oye and Edozie Njoku, who has been parading himself as APGA national chairman since Oye’s re-election over two years ago. Okeke claimed to be APGA’s acting national chairman after the so-called suspension of Oye and Njoku. He travelled all the way to Jigawa to secure a bizarre judgement to validate his claim. INEC, on account of that judgement, accepted and published the name of Umeoji as the recognized candidate of APGA.

Njoku had also conducted his own primary in which he crowned himself APGA candidate for the Anambra guber election. His application seeking for leave to appeal the Jigawa High Court ruling in favour of Okeke was struck out by the appellate court in Kano. By the dismissal of Njoku’s application, the battle at the Kano Appeal Court was left between Okeke and Oye whose request to appeal the Jigawa court verdict was granted.

With the pronouncement of the Kano Division of the Court of Appeal, observers believe there should be no contention any more as to who is APGA’s authentic national chairman that INEC should relate with for the purpose of the forthcoming Anambra guber election. Analysts see the appellate court judgement as a clear and outright affirmation of Oye’s leadership and Soludo’s candidacy for the party in the gubernatorial poll.

In his reaction to the ruling of the Appeal Court, Senator Victor Umeh, former national chairman of APGA, said the legal war instituted against Oye’s leadership was merely designed to cause needless distraction to Soludo’s campaign. Umeh, a master strategist, who is indisputably a force to reckon with in Anambra politics, averred that APGA had never wavered about the authenticity of Oye’s leadership. “We were convinced that the High Court judgment of Burnin Kudu in Jigawa State should have been a nullity, but some people including the INEC used it to torment us. Not only has the judiciary redeemed itself, it has also shown that it is the hope of the people. Nothing in that judgement (of Jigawa High Court) should be allowed to be alive. The judges of the Court of Appeal were thorough and there was no flaw,” he said, adding, “With this judgement, we have now rebounded. Previously we had said Soludo will contest and it has come to pass. He is our candidate and the person that the party nominated.”

• Michael Jegede, Abuja