Oki tasks committee on terms for withdrawal of court cases

FACTIONAL Chairman of the Lagos State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress ( APC), Mr. Fouad Oki, has urged the Caretaker/ ExtraOrdinary National Convention Planning Committee, headed by Mai Mala Buni, to be more concise on how it plans to address the admonition by President Muhammadu Buhari to aggrieved party members, reported state factions and members of the dissolved National Working Committee ( NWC), among other stakeholders, to drop cases against the party in the courts.

Oki, who spoke with The Guardian on telephone yesterday, said it is imperative of Buni and his new team to spell out in precise term how they want to address the issue, otherwise “the party might risk scratching the matter on the surface without reaching a conclusive and peaceful end.”

Buhari, in November 2018, following the acrimonies that characterised the congresses, had stressed that if anyone is displeased with the way and manner anything has been done, and feels deprived of his/ her rights, such person is at liberty to approach the courts for redress. His position then contradicted the party’s decision, which forbade members from taking the party to court.

According to Oki, “we are ready to comply and work in co- operation with the Buniled caretaker committee for the benefit of the party but we must be able to explain to the court reason we want to withdraw our case. This is why we are calling on Buni to take the issues of those petitions that came up as a result of the 2018 controversial congresses and primaries seriously with the hope to resolving them. The same President, who encouraged aggrieved members to approach the court in 2018 and further took a step to set up Bisi Akande’s reconciliation committee that failed, has again admonished that all aggrieved members should withdraw court cases against the party.”

When contacted yesterday whether the Oki’s faction or the Buni- led committee had reached out to it on modalities for withdrawing the court case, Publicity Secretary of Lagos APC, Mr. Seye Oladejo, said there was nothing of such.

According to him, “there is no mention of such. The matter is still very much in the court and they ( Buni, Oki) have not reached out to us. That is the reason we refused to react on every utterance in that regard.”