National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has revealed the brains behind the attempts to suspend him from office.
He blamed his recent travails on some chieftains of the party outside his state.
Oshiomhole spoke to State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday evening at the Presidential Villa, hours after a Federal High Court in Kano gave a restraining order in his favour.
The APC Chairman declared only God can determine for how long he would lead the party.
He said efforts by those he dubbed as ‘blacklegs’, whom he accused of holding membership of other opposition parties will not succeed
However, reacting to the court order, the APC National Vice-Chairman said: “First of all I want to be very brief because the case is in court and I am the plaintiff so it would be sub judice for me. But, I want to tell you from my knowledge of the law that two courts of coordinate jurisdiction cannot seat on appeal on order or judgement given by each other.
“A federal high court cannot seat on appeal an FCT high court. The only court that has the jurisdiction to seat an appeal is the court of appeal in this case and the court order of the FCT high court was served yesterday.
“Most of you have the copy of the order and it is elementary law that first in time prevails. That of Abuja high court came earlier and we seek for interlocutory injunction and there is an affidavit of urgency which seek to prevent certain kinds of mischief which we prayed that the court should help prevent which they did.
“So, If you look at the main reason why that interlocutory injunction is granted I don’t think that a federal high court of the same jurisdiction will now come and set it aside. We don’t need the knowledge of the law to know that a high court cannot seat on a matter of appeal on the high court.
“So, I don’t want to say much about the order but I want to say that it is only the court of appeal that can vacate this injunction,” he said.
Asked if there was a leadership vacuum in the party, he said: “As you can see we are in the secretariat and we are running the affairs of the party. So the suspension still prevails until the hearing of the matter or if there is any contrary order from the court of appeal.”
On the statement issued yesterday by the APC National Chairman admitting the three national officers into NWC, he said,
“That’s laughable because that one is what amuses me most and it is very pathetic and disturbing because we saw an announcement that purported that we approved nominations of three officers on January 14.
“One of these officers which is the Deputy National Chairman south, the nomination from his state came to the national vice chairman on February 28, almost 40 days after the date of the purported meeting. The meeting we held on January 14, I came out of the meeting and I told newsmen that the meeting was stopped because they were trying to do illegality on the National Secretary’s replacement, the matter of the other people was referred to their zone, nobody discussed at the meeting.
“But seeing that he has been suspended he now have to bring out that information, I don’t think it is a civil matter, I think our lawyers are looking at it because it is a criminal matter
“I am an NWC member and I was not in the meeting where the decision to admit these persons as NWC members were taken. Where is the minute of the meeting, where was it held? And how do we approve a nomination that is yet to come, we are not running a banana republic.”
Meanwhile, six NWC members met on Thursday at the party secretariat, which according to source was to review the suspension of the chairman and the admission of three National Officers into the NWC. It was chaired by the Ag. National Secretary, Hon. Victor Giadom.