 The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has been asked to sack the May Mala Boni-Ledka Taker Committee, an Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee of the All Progressive Congress, and nullify all the actions taken by the committee so far. Well, joining us to discuss this is Communications Analyst Ihechuku Ibeji and Legal Practitioner Steven Agiode. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. All right. I'm going to start with you, Agiode, because this is a legal matter, and we know that one of the reasons why the Congress is being challenged is that there were certain issues, legal issues that had preceded this Congress. In fact, people were hoping, many had said that this Congress should not happen, and many had asked that the Boni himself step aside. But now, someone is now going to call to challenge the leadership of Boni and asking him to step aside. Now, I'd just like to refer to a judgment that was done on the APC Congress, and I'd like to talk about the implication. Apparently, the APC, like I said, had approved the Congress for last weekend. The implication of that case was that going by the just-delivered judgment, any election that would have been done by the Boni-led committee can be challenged in a competent court of law by opposition parties, and even members of that political party. But breaking down to the simple man as to what exactly is happening in the APC and why even opposition parties can challenge the internal politics of the APC? It all comes down to the case of Akiri Dunu, who was recently decided by his Supreme Court. Three of the justices made what they would call the Obita Statements. The statements are not going to be root of the case, but affect the issue at hand tangentially. They were not the basis of the decision. What the three judges said was that under Section 183 of the Constitution, the executive governor of the state cannot occupy any other executive position. The position of Section 183 is very clear. Once you are a governor, you cannot take up any paid employment or you cannot take up any executive position. So it is the Obita of three of the justices of the Supreme Court that has raised the issue of whether this executive committee of the APC, which is being operated right now as a caretaker committee, is legal and whether APC is not in danger of having actions taken by that body nullified in future and declared illegal. So that is the root of all this controversy. Let me refer to what Mr. Festus Cayamo, who is a member of the APC, had to say he had advised that the party avoid a wave of legal battles. He also said that the APC had the option of excluding not only Boone, but anyone holding the executive position in any government establishment from the caretaker extraordinary convention planning committee as stipulated in Article 17 of the party's constitution. He also went ahead to talk about the fact that under Article 25 of the APC constitution, it is the national chairman or two-thirds of the members of the NEC, that's the National Executive Council, that can summon a NEC meeting. And he said, I quote him, since we cannot vouch for the legality of any NEC meeting summoned by May Mala Boone, now the safest way or the safest thing to do is to get two-thirds of the NEC members to sign an invitation to summon a NEC meeting where the CEC-PC would be reconstituted and the party would be safe. This was what Festus Cayamo said. My question obviously is, why is it taking, I mean we've seen, this is a member of the party who is also a senior advocate of Nigeria, why is it so difficult for the party to absorb what even the illegal practitioners are, you know, saying. Again, let's revert to what happened over the weekend as to the APC congresses. There are there are contemplations as to whether these congresses might have to be done all over again. Does that not show that the party is being messy or there is a serious split as to opinions within the party? In the first place, a democratic party has no reason to have in place a CEC committee. But if for any reason necessity made you have such, what would have thought that the NDS opportunity to reorganize yourself and go to convention? I thought that when the CEC committee was formed, the objects of it, what would have immediately happened was that the APC should have gone into convention mode. It is that inability to move towards a return to democracy that is causing all this. You remember this, this CEC committee has been around for about six months or so now. There was ample time to rectify the processes of APC. It's a shame that we are here. Particularly is happening at the time when PDP itself is also in crisis. So our political system is almost in a mess. It's sad. It's very sad. All right, let me let me go to Ihechi. I hope you can hear me. Ihechi, can you hear me? Hello, I can I can I can barely hear you. Okay, I'm going to try as much as possible to be audible. Just as you have heard Mr. Steven Aguirre speak about the crack in the party and the Congress that we had over the weekend and we can see that there's a back and forth as to whether Bhuni should step down, whether he should be sacked. Now there's a man in court who has officially launched a complaint asking that he also step down for the party to be able to move forward. Let's assess the APC right now because we just finished talking about the PDP and the internal crisis that they're facing. Even at that, even at the fact that the APC is having internal crisis, we still see people leaving the PDP to the APC. And I have asked this question over and over again. Will the APC be able to survive 2023? Because many pundits have said the foundation of the APC was not built on solid ground. What do you stand on this? Okay, so I think that I'm reading everybody. I think that what is happening now, the kernel of this issue is in this recent judgment, this recent Supreme Court judgment, the Supreme Court judgment that you said, just very narrowly on technicality to be a hands-off or current on the stick of law. And then all of a sudden the foundation doesn't look so solid, you know, coming from where political actors in the APC are looking at it. Now, why are the PDP people? And look, it's a game of politics, pure politics. Previously, before that particular court judgment, you have seen that some of the PDP, you have PDP governor who has become and some PDP members who have also become. But what has happened with this judgment now is that all of a sudden, with the faint sort of three, right, narrow split in between that judgment in favor and the issue that brings to bear the legality of the current technical community as against having a democratic stock job in place to have the power to appoint or sorry to nominate governorships or across board, what it has done is that it has given them a hear that if they go ahead with the world congress, and they continue to go ahead with the major elections, I mean, anybody can come out and take them to court. And using that technology that they pointed out, and of course, completely destroy their plans. So what you're seeing is pure politics, pure politics. And there is a real chance, looking at it from this court judgment now, that that can happen, that all their plans, if seen on the foundation of a Supreme Court judgment that has made it look shaky, all their plans, if they eventually win, can come crashing down. And look, let me tell you the truth of case, just as we're seeing in a number of things now, people are ready to go to court on any or the same death of excuse because the price is choicey. And let me be frank with you, I do not think it's about the people at this point in time. It's about personal interest. All right. And so people want to be in power for as long as possible. So you have a caretaker committee chairman who continues to carry on because we have supporters and people who believe that he should be there. But on the other hand, you have a greater interest of people who also feel that the caretaker committee chairman who is the governor should not, at the same time, hold the office of the chairman. They have their own interest. So the truth is that there's a real danger that going by this court judgment, to be court judgment, if they use that as a plank, or even ignore that and go ahead to build on what Congress needs, go down to nominations of across state and national locations, that's in the view of the 2020 election, there's every possibility that that court judgment can be used against them in the eventual turn of things. And that would be very, very disastrous then. So even the people who are decamping now, I believe the team twice, I should think. And that is the canal of the problem. Let's just again, I want to push you further because we see that many, this is a factional problem within a party. And there are those who are behind Boone, there are those who are against him. But if the party were to decide to choose someone to head that committee, that caretaker committee, who do you think would be the best person that would represent all the opinions, all of the people and their interests? Don't forget that there are many key players. We have the national leader of the party on one side. We've had all kinds of rumors as to the cracks within the party and those who are supporting him. We saw the APC, the Kiti, just before the Congress and the issues that they had. We saw parallel Congresses in different parts. We saw in Abia. The party has also come out to say that they're going to punish the members of their parties who have gotten into those primaries or parallel Congresses. So there seems to be so many factions. Who can be that unifying person within the party that would be able to lead the party out of the distress that they seem to be in? Well, to be quite frank with you, there seems to be, in terms of agreement, there seems to be an agreement that the current judgment has brought up a serious issue that most people address. So that's why you see a lot of meetings are being held, even from the very highest point, even involving the vice president and every other person. Now, aside from the current political committee chairman, there's been no clear court person who is contender who has come out as a diss to show interest in that current seat. But there are interests and there have been suggestions, even from the background, that the previous democratically elected structure should be reinstated. You get. So now that is a major clank of what is currently going on. Now, at the point where there's going to be a meeting of, okay, can we get that democratic structure as a suggestion to address any issues that this particular committee, in terms of looking at its legality, will bring up in future, that is where you are going to see the president behind the curtain. But trust me, the ways, the push for a democratically elected structure and the chairman, as against having to fall to pieces for the court to say it's been done by an unseen hand. And that's how politics is going to, and that's exactly what's going on. So no name can be brought to thought, suggestion, previous democratic structures should be brought to play. But guess what? Even the previous democratic structure had their own packages. And those packages will push them off the pitch in the first place. So there must be a person who they'll come up with in terms of a consensus that is going to help to settle that, okay, he will stand for the Ketica Committee and he will stand for the future. But the truth is that they have to do it fast. They have no chance of doing it fast because some congress, some world congresses have already been done based on this current Ketica Committee. So they have to get it down and then decide whether they're going to vote, world congresses all over again. Okay, back to you, Ms. Agende. Let's talk about, again, he's raised a lot of issues, but I just, I just, I will try to lump it up in one question. We've looked at the legal angle, we've looked at the political angle and all of the problems that could be. I just spoke to someone from the People's Democratic Party or someone on the issue of the People's Democratic Party and the fact that then people in the PDP still moving to the APC. But he just made mention of the fact that most of these people who have gone to the APC will probably be regretting it because of the issues that are already in the party. Now I asked earlier on the foundation of the APC and how the APC came to belong, to become rather the APC and a very huge opposition to the PDP. We saw the different political parties that came together and I want to ask the same question I asked him, but all of these blocks and the strong men that these blocks have, do we see the APC surviving this particular storm? Because it looks like, like you said, the easy thing or the easy way out is out there in black and white, but nobody seems to want to take that, toe that line or take it and make everything go away. But even if they were to toe that line, does it make the problem go away or are there deeper problems? Is there the hand of ESO in all of this? And where does the president come in all of this, being that whether we like it or not, he's an APC member, even as he's a president. But the last thing you said captures each other. In fact, that's where I was going. You see, we have, the way we have evolved our presidential system and our party system, the president is the leader of the party. The current crisis is the, how do I say, the block stops at the president's place. If the president had been proactive, matters will not have gotten to this stage. In my view, during the political present, Buhari did very well when there was a crisis with the former, with the previous executive. He managed to stabilize the party by bringing in a caretaker committee. But as things progressed, I thought it behoved him to take another step and say, okay, this temporary measure, how do we find a permanent solution to it? I mean, let's look at this thing first of all. I removed my lawyer hat and I take it from his hat. You are the president of Nigeria. You have had the hand in the caretaker committee being put in place. You know, in Nigeria, we have this issue of zoning and federal character. If only it was for that issue alone, I would have thought you would have said, oh, I am the president from a certain part of the country. The head of the party previously was from another part. So therefore, this temporary arrangement can only last for so long. I need to move forward. I need to ensure that the party goes to convention, the proper part of the country to which such a post should be sold to, to which you go to and all that. So I see what has happened as something that at the end of the day, the box stops with him. If we say who failed in this matter, we would have to look at him very closely and say, couldn't he have done better? Then you have a situation even that the president has just one year more to go. If you look at it, where we are is that the president has only one year to go. We have an APC now, which at this junction, we don't have aspiring presidential candidates. Nothing is going on there. We cannot even say, oh, come, let's say, who will be our president in social time? Who is setting out an agenda for the future? A troubled economy, population overblowing, so many problems. So who is setting out an agenda? Who is talking about APC? There's nobody talking. Nobody talking. There's no presidential, there's no hope of somebody coming to take over. Nobody is setting off a future vision. I mean, it's the silence of a graveyard. Then you have the PDP. Well, ever since the left power, they've been a shadow of themselves. No, there was no regenerative vision. Nothing, the party has just been a lackluster opposition. In fact, there has been more opposition. What we have seen now is that there are party people just moved from one party to the other. I mean, I fear for my country. Well, on that very gloomy note, we want to say thank you, gentlemen, because we're out of time. Thank you very much for being part of the conversation. We appreciate it. All right. Well, on that note, thank you all for being part of the conversation. I will see you tomorrow on Plus Politics. I am Mary Ann Ackon. Have a good evening.