* Says apex court’s judgment on Sokoto strange
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the protest embarked on by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja yesterday against the Supreme Court as disgraceful and senseless.
The ruling party in a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, noted that the protest was embarked upon by the opposition party with the sole purpose of dragging the apex court in the land, and indeed the country into odium and scorn before the international community.
He said that the ruling party found the indecorous and contemptuous actions and remarks by the leadership of the PDP worrisome.
Issa-Onilu stated: “The disgraceful and senseless protest embarked upon by the opposition party is being done with the sole purpose of dragging the apex court of our land, and indeed our great country into odium and scorn before the international community.
“We also view the irascible actions and irresponsible remarks by the PDP as a calculated attempt to overheat the polity. PDP has become a present threat to our peaceful coexistence.”
The party spokesman reiterated that on January 14, 2020, the Supreme Court delivered a bold and very remarkable judgment in the case involving the governorship election of Imo State, stressing that like all judicial contests, there was a winner and there was a loser.
Issa-Onilu noted that the crux of the decision was that the PDP candidate – who had been adjudged to have been wrongfully declared the winner by the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Imo State was removed by the apex Court and Sen. Hope Uzodinma of APC was declared the rightful winner of the election.
He stressed that this decision by the apex court was not made lightly but was, in fact, based on the facts presented by the parties and the law canvassed before it by their respective counsel.
“How else should a court of law determine a case before it? Based on innuendos, conjecture, suspicions and conspiracy theories? Certaintly not.”
Issa-Onilu said that since then, the PDP had issued press statements and made series of wild and unsubstantiated allegations as well as casting aspersion at the court for its decision.
He said that every time the PDP lost in Court, it declared the decision suspect with an allegation that the country’s democracy was on life support.
For the records, Issa-Onilu said APC, through no fault of theirs even as the ruling party, had suffered monumental losses in the courts in respect of elections conducted in 2019.
He said in Rivers State alone, APC lost out in 46 elective positions even before the starter pistol was fired during the last general election.
“What about Zamfara State? We won every elective position in Zamfara State. However, when the Court determined that all the votes willfully given to us by the good people of Zamfara State were wasted votes – which again was the first of its kind in our electoral jurisprudence; the APC lost everything. In essence, we went to bed occupying all 35 elective offices in Zamfara State and woke up occupying none on account of the decision of the Court. We did not bring down the nation but accepted our loss because democracy is as much about losing as it is about winning in any election contest.”
The party spokesman also noted that the ruling party lost Sokoto State governorship to PDP on account of the judgment delivered yesterday by the Supreme Court.
“We should state that the judgment is completely strange to our expectation based on the facts before us. For the record, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, the current Governor of Sokoto State, is on his seat with 324 votes with over 30,000 canceled votes in the March governorship election. PDP does not see anything wrong in this, but it is comfortable with Mr. Emeka Ihedioha occupying the governorship seat in Imo State for seven months without meeting the constitutional requirement of 25 per cent in two-third of the Local Government Councils in the state.”
The APC said that unlike PDP, it would not behave like spoilt brats and threatened the peace of the country over the surprising judgment of the Supreme Court on the Sokoto State seat.
