APC confident that nullification of Buni's tenure as party chairman will not affect Tinubu's candidacy

ALL Progressives Congress (APC) officials are confident that a recent court ruling nullifying the tenure of Governor Mai Mala Buni as the chairman of the party’s national caretaker committee will not affect the candidacy of its presidential aspirant Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

In June, Asiwaju Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential candidate after coasting home in a landslide victory at the party's convention in Abuja. Following his victory, he laboured to select a running mate after publicly declaring that he will pick a northern Christian as his deputy but the process appeared fraught with difficulty and he eventually settled for a Muslim in the form of Borno State governor Senator Kashim Shettima.

However, last month, a federal high court judgment ruled that the period during which Governor Buni was APC chairman was null and void. Sensing blood, the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party quickly seized on this to say that the APC has no valid presidential candidate for the 2023 general election.

PDP publicity secretary Debo Ologunagba, has even asked Asiwaju Tinubu to seek legal advice on the implications of the court ruling that nullified the tenure of Governor Buni as the chairman of the party’s national caretaker committee. He also urged Asiwaju Tinubu to account for the consequences and implications of the discrepancies in his academic qualifications and other controversies he has entangled himself with.

Mr Ologunagba urged Asiwaju Tinubu to go home and face the issues of inconsistencies in his educational qualifications, name, ancestry, age as well as corruption allegations. Reacting, however, the APC dismissed Mr Ologunagba’s statement, saying that the federal high court judgment was flawed.

APC national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, said: “I am confident that the decision will not pass the appellate court’s scrutiny. For one, the decision flies in the face of a valid and subsisting majority Supreme Court decision in Akeredolu’s case, which settled the question as to the validity of Mai Mala Buni caretaker committee.

“In any event, that committee was duly constituted by the national executive committee of the APC and everything done by the caretaker committee was duly ratified by the national convention, the highest decision-making organ of the party. Clearly, we stand on the strong legal ground and are unperturbed by that decision.”