A Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Umar Sani, has said the former governor of Bauchi State, Sule Lamido, was not allowed to participate in the Ibadan National Convention that produced the Kabiru Turaki-led National Working Committee (NWC) over failure to go through the right processes of obtaining the form for the chairmanship position.
Naijaonpoint recalls that Lamido had gone to the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to challenge the outcome of the National Convention.
Lamido told the court that he was not allowed to express his fundamental rights to contest the party’s national chairmanship.
However, Sani, during an interview on Arise Television’s Morning Show, said Lamido only showed interest in contesting the position on the day the forms were due to be submitted.
According to Sani, Lamido also went to Wadata House to buy the form instead of the party’s annex office, the Legacy House.
Sani further emphasised that the party felt that the court had erred by not listening to them.
He said, “These are the issues we are trying to formulate to the Supreme Court, if necessary, that some of these things and some of the arguments we have put forward to the Court of Appeal were not considered by the Court of Appeal.
“They did not look at the wisdom of our argument and why we took certain decisions in the Sule Lamido case. It is very clear that Lamido came to buy form on the day that it was scheduled for the return of completed forms, and the party had already scheduled sale of forms under the Convention Planning Committee, which headquarters was domiciled at our other office, our annex office, which is the Legacy House.
“And so Lamido went to Wadata Plaza to purchase form on the final day for the submission of forms. You know, even with that argument, the court played deaf to our argument, and we felt that the court had erred by not listening to us.
“You know, even at that, the court didn’t say that we should not go ahead (with the convention). They said we should open a room for him (Lamido) to participate in the convention. So and we felt opening a room for him to participate when he has not even obtained a form is against the standing rules of the party, against the constitution of our party, and the court is saying every decision taken should be reliant on our constitution, and yet it is not seeing this very important aspect of our constitution.
“So we felt these are issues, you know, clearly for determination by the Supreme Court.”