Babatunde Ogala, SAN, is the immediate past National Legal Adviser of the All Progressives Congress and a former member of the Lagos State House of Assembly. In this interview with AUGUSTINE AVWODE, he x-rays the implications of the recent Supreme Court 4/3 split decision in favour of his party in the Jegede vs Akeredolu legal tussle for the APC and submits that to avoid imminent legal mines and ditches in the nearest future, the APC should restore all structures purportedly dissolved to save the party from future troubles. Excerpts:
Following your opinion and that of like minds as a result of the recent Supreme Court judgment in the Ondo State governorship election, one would have thought that the party would stay action on the congresses held penultimate Saturday. How would you react to that?
My opinion on this issue was on the legal implication of the continued stay in office of the Caretaker Committee. I was not talking about congresses but on the judgment of the Supreme Court, especially the minority decision, which I considered a hint, and the majority that has no comment on the minority decision which I also see as a wink. That was the prelude upon which I tried to ask the party to be cautious going forward and advised the party to revert back to what our constitution clearly states.
“In my opinion, the right thing to do is go back immediately to the status quo and restore all the structures of the party that were purportedly dissolved. We should just admit that mistakes have been made and let those structures resume their work immediately”
I talked about the implications of having a Caretaker Committee in clear contravention of the prescription of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Section 223, which requires only elected officials to be managers of the party. And in so doing, I alluded to Section 4 of the Constitution, which makes provisions for a system of democratically elected local government, which has been determined by the Supreme Court that only democratically elected officials should manage our local governments. I also said that prior to decision of the Supreme Court on local government, especially in Oyo State, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, had seriously warned state governments not to go in breach of the constitution and that only democratically elected leaders can manage the local government affairs. And like I said, when you look at Sections 221 and 222, with Section 223, they all point to the fact that only democratically elected leaders should be allowed to manage the party.
Do you entertain fear that the worst may be lurking in the corner for the APC should your advice and that of like minds not be heeded by the party?
Absolutely; we are all scared. And that is why we are saying it is a cliffhanger or a legal ditch that we must avoid. Three to four split decision of the Supreme Court is very close. And so we should avoid that potential danger that lies ahead of us by going back to the status quo. In my opinion, the right thing to do is to go back immediately to the status quo and restore all the structures of the party that were purportedly dissolved. We should just admit that mistakes have been made and let those structures resume their work immediately.
Are you not worried that a big party such as the All Progressives Congress has no Board of Trustees almost seven years into its existence?
In fact, it is worrisome that seven years or almost seven years into its existence, despite the clear provisions of our party constitution, that we shall have a BOT, and the fact that the same constitution also prescribed who and who shall be members of the BOT, we do not have a BOT as at date. It is not too palatable.
And you see, if you have also read what my brother, Festus Keyamo, SAN, prescribed, he had prescribed that the BOT could call the convention. But as it is today, we don’t have one. So, that possibility is foreclosed. And that is my concern that we have left what ought to have been done, undone. At this time of crisis, of uncertainty and distress within the party, the BOT could have come in to take charge and so could have called the convention. But unfortunately, as it is, we don’t have any and I don’t think the Caretaker Committee, as constituted, is constitutional and that is why I have prescribed and recommended that we should go back to where we were coming from. And there is nothing wrong in us admitting that we have made mistakes; it is human. We could have made mistakes and there is nothing wrong in us admitting that and making correction. And like I said in another interview, only yesterday I read that there was a mistake that was made in Imo State when the governor was dissolving the cabinet. He came out yesterday and said look, we made a mistake by including the Attorney General and that his name shouldn’t have been included among those people who were to leave office and that he should please resume his duties as his name was erroneously included in the list of those to be relieved of their duties.
By the same token, we too can go out and say, look, we made a mistake by dissolving our structures. Look, let those structures continue in office. And they can simply take off from where they left. It is so simple and you can now call a proper NEC meeting. Unfortunately, even NEC has been dissolved. So, there is no real structure in the party; absolutely none that is known to our constitution that we are operating today. The management structures of the party, as we have it today, from the Ward to Local Government to State, have been purportedly, I use the word, purportedly, dissolved. And if we don’t want to use the word dissolved, let us say have been emasculated.
So, we should just un-emasculate them and let them continue with their work. We can then charge them and say give us a convention within such and such a time. And they can call a national convention where we can resolve all these differences and move forward by allowing the national convention that has the power to exercise all these its powers legally. As we speak, all those structures are gone because they have been purportedly dissolved or converted to Caretaker Committees. Right from the Ward to the National level, everything in my opinion, are illegalities that contravene Section 223 of the constitution. So, we should quickly go back to the past, bury our ego, stop the grandstanding and save the party.
Talking about the APC’s failure to constitute a BOT in seven years, who do you think should take responsibility for that lapse?
All of us, including me. This is not the time for fault finding or blame apportioning. And that is why we must make it known to our colleagues that it is not the time for fault finding, and blaming anyone for it. We should all take collective responsibility for what we have done wrong and also take collective responsibility to move forward. It is collective. I mean, I am not going to blame anybody. I am not. But let us come together, reason together, think together and face the party and not individuals. Let us drop the ego, the personality and save this party because this party ought to and should outlive all of us. We should look beyond the immediate. We should look at the future. We should build a sustainable structure for this party that will last hundreds of years. So my appeal today is that let us come together and look at things very well and do them right.
