TheCable

The Justice Advocacy Forum (JAF), a group in the All Progressives Congress (APC), says former President Muhammadu Buhari should apologise over the sacking of the party’s national working committee (NWC) led by Adams Oshiomhole.

In 2020, Oshiomhole was sacked after Buhari recommended the dissolution of the NWC which the national executive council (NEC) approved.

The party was enmeshed in a leadership crisis after a court of appeal upheld the suspension of Oshiomhole as the national chair of the party.

On that basis, Victor Gaidom, an APC chieftain, declared himself acting chair.

In a statement on Sunday, Abubakar Umar and Rufus Ajani, JAF’s coordinator and secretary, said Oshiomhole and members of his NWC were removed because they supported President Bola Tinubu.

They said Tinubu should compensate them for standing by him.

“We have no option than to cry out now to President Bola Tinubu to reward the former party officers for their respective sacrifices with political appointments,” they said.

“The cabal virtually toyed with our party’s collective destiny, such that we had three acting National Chairmen within three days in June, 2020.

“To avoid bad spiritual karma, former President Buhari will do well to make apologies for injustice against people who were exercising their right to support their preferred candidate and this was most probably done on his behalf by entrenched anti-Tinubu forces in Buhari’s government.

“One of the gravest ills plaguing the APC was the forceful sack of that NWC and the effect is still being felt in the party till date.

“In one fell swoop, they sacked a properly constituted NWC in the second year of its four year tenure and the gross harassment and intimidation that followed was inhuman and unimagined.

“For this, we demand an unreserved apology from him.

“To make matters worse, the affected people who are still being mocked today for refusing to renounce their support for President Bola Tinubu in 2020 are alone, having been sidelined and abandoned by a government under a leader for whose ambition they sacrificed so much – this is double jeopardy.”

They said it is not too late for Tinubu to compensate them.