Osun Bye-Election: Committee’s Disqualification Decision Fraudulent, says Senator Hussain

The leading aspirant for the All Progressives Congress in the upcoming Osun West Senatorial election, Senator Mudasiru Hussain has described his purported disqualification by the primary committee as fraudulent, illegal and with no footing in party’s constitution.

The committee headed by the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Nasarawa State, claimed Hussain failed to resign his appointment 30-day before the election as required by the APC constitution and the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Hussain who spoke through his counsel, Dr Ajibola Basiru, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice of Osun State said: “The provision they quoted in the letter given to my principal is not in the guideline. I challenge them to provide the copy of the guideline they quoted. I don’t think it should be heard, even for their own integrity to just open and read it to us; rather they were engaging in act of rigmarole.

“The constitution of the party is supreme, the only provision in the constitution of our party that requires somebody to resign is Article 31, Section 3 of the constitution and it only relates to somebody holding party office. The question to ask is, by regulation, assuming there is such regulation amend what is in the constitution of the party?

“Secondly, the language they used, according to them, they claimed that my principal said he is serving as a commissioner. That is a lie. They asked in the expression of interest form of any political appointment in a express form; the temporal dimension, the time the political appointment was being held is not stated there.

“Of course he had been a commissioner, he was appointed as a Commissioner. Throughout the screening exercise, he was not asked what happened to that appointment; whether he resigned or not. “That is not even the issue; the language they used in the letter given to Hussain, they claimed that in their guideline, that the aspirant shall not remain an employee in the public service within 30 days preceding the date of an election.

“The Court of Appeal, in the case of Dada and Adeyeye, Part 920 of the Nigeria Weekly Law Report has stated, interpreting the identical provision in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that an appointee is not somebody who is in the employment of public service.

“A commissioner, assuming he is still the commissioner is not an employee. Is it a pensionable employment? That is clearly stated by the Court of Appeal. On Legal ground, the decision of the screening committee cannot stand, on morally ground, the decision is doubtful.

“We are going to appeal this process but we not know that certainly there is danger because people who are supposed to be of credibility can act with whims and caprices. I say with all sense of credibility that the primary will hold and Senator Mudasiru Hussain will trump.