Obaseki: Edo Group Asks APC to Tender Apology to Edo People or Face Litigation

A political pressure group, Edo First for Growth, has called on the dissolved National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the screening committee for the Edo State governorship primaries and the appeal committee which disqualified the state Governor, Godwin Obaseki, to tender a public apology to the Edo people or be ready to face litigation. The group, in a statement signed by its Convener, Earl Osaro Onaiwu, on Tuesday noted that now that the courts has discarded all the suits challenging the efficacy of Obaseki's certificates, the Prof. Jonathan Ayuba-led Screening Committee must apologise to the Edo people for defaming the character of their governor. A part of the statement read: "The whole world can now see the hatchet job which Adams Oshiomhole used Ayuba and his committee members to achieve. In the process, they offended the sensibilities of the Edo people; impugn our integrity and made our state a cheap talking point in the Nigerian polity, all in the wicked bid to drag down the hardworking Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki. "Now that the courts have made it clear that they have no locus to disqualify the governor, we demand a written public apology from the dissolved APC NWC, screening committee led by Prof. Ayuba and the appeal committee which ratified the injustice in the next 72 hours, otherwise we will have no other choice than to drag them to law court for character defamation." Recall that the APC screening committee disqualified Obaseki from the governorship contest in the party over what it termed "defective certificate". Obaseki had since crossed over to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he successfully secured the party's ticket to contest in the September 2020 governorship election in the state.