Heed Buhari’s Warning Or Risk Exposing Yourselves, Sagay Tells APC Leadership

Professor Itse Sagay SAN, Chairman, Presidential Advisory
Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), has described as
unconstitutional the threat by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, National
Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to sanction
aggrieved party members who approached the courts to seek redress
over the outcome of the controversial primaries.

In a message sent to Daily Independent on Tuesday titled: ‘Let
The APC Chairman And The NWC Of The Party Be Warned’, Sagay said
President Muhammadu Buhari was right when he said members of the
party who feel aggrieved should seek redress in courts.

The statement reads: “Arising from the crisis ridden primaries
of the APC all over the Country, many aggrieved aspirants for the
Party’s nomination at all levels, (with the exception of the
Presidency) have gone to Court to challenge the Party’s decisions
which they firmly believe, robbed them of their victories and
awarded the nomination to other persons, whose common identity, is
that they are nearly all money bags with equally heavy moral
baggage, who had held offices and positions in the PDP.

“Most of them are last minute defectors from the PDP, having
failed to get their party’s nomination or were scared away from
contesting for nomination in their party because of the strength of
the opposing contestant.

“Most of these alleged primary ‘victors’ are past, long standing
Governors and Senators, etc. of the PDP who parachuted into the APC
at the last minute to pursue their selfish ambitions. For them the
APC is merely a convenient platform for actualizing their post
governor/senator ambitions. They have absolutely neither affinity
nor empathy towards the APC.

“All this is quite in order in an underdeveloped democracy like
Nigeria’s. However what is absolutely NOT acceptable is the threat
to expel the aggrieved aspirants for taking their grievance to
Court in search of a judicial resolution. The threat to expel them
is absolutely illegal, both under the common law and under the
Nigerian Constitution.

“Under the common law, any provision in any agreement which
purports to deprive the parties of their right to resort to the
Courts for the settlement of any dispute arising out of their
transaction is VOID on the ground of Public Policy.

“This is a long established principle of law and I am surprised
that the APC Legal Adviser did not inform the NWC that the attempt
to bind the hands of aggrieved party members by ousting the
jurisdiction of the Courts, is a nullity and an act in
futility.

“Even more devastating to the position of the APC NWC is Section
36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which gives EVERYONE a right of
fair hearing before a Court or a Tribunal established by law for
the determination of civil rights and obligations.

“So the President was very right when he urged every one of the
aspirants who felt cheated or defrauded, to go to Court. The vain
and impetuous declaration by the embattled APC NWC to still expel
members exercising their Inalienable Common Law and Constitutional
Rights, in spite of the President’s directive, is a clear exercise
in childish futility; a precursor of major humiliation.

“So, the Chairman and Members of the NWC of the APC are warned
to heed the advice of the President or risk exposing themselves to
a major embarrassment.

“After all, if their preferred candidates actually won their
primaries, why this terrible apprehension of judicial review of the
primary results? Or are they harbouring a morbid fear of
exposure?”

Related