Anti-party Activities: APC Lawmaker, Others File Suit For Banire’s Expulsion

Punch reported that three members of the All Progressives Congress, including a lawmaker in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Wasiu Sanni, have urged the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja to expel the party’s National Legal Adviser, Dr. Muiz Banire (SAN), over alleged anti-party activities.

Sanni, who is the current Deputy Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, filed the suit alongside Babatunde Kehinde and Alhaji Kazeem Olatunji.

In the suit filed through their lawyer, Mr. Wahab Shittu, the plaintiffs alleged that Banire had flouted Articles 12.3, 12.4, and 12.5 of the APC Constitution 2014, among other provisions of the law and should be expelled.

They alleged that Banire, sometime in December 2015, “orchestrated forgery by facilitating the use of false document by the Independent National Electoral Commission.”

Sanni, who is the first plaintiff in the suit, claimed that the alleged forgery was intended to rob him of the victory he won at the December 2014 APC primary for the Lagos State House of Assembly by substituting his name with that of Hakeem Masha, who was the first runner-up in the primary.

He claimed that though he won the primary by scoring186 out of the total valid votes of 279, Banire caused a letter, dated January 9, 2015, to be written to the Independent National Electoral Commission that he (Sanni) had withdrawn from the contest.

He said in his place, the name of Masha was submitted to INEC, adding that it took the intervention of Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court in Lagos to restore his mandate to him.