By Chuks Okocha
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Thursday said that it received the judgment of the Supreme Court restoring its mandate in the Bayelsa State governorship election, but stated that the apex court must right the wrongs in the Imo State governorship election judgment.
The PDP congratulated the people of Bayelsa State, the governor-elect, Senator Douye Diri, and the deputy governor-elect, Lawrence Ewrujakpor, as their mandate has been restored.
The party said in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, that the Bayelsa judgment will not change the course of its demand that the Supreme Court rectifies the manifest and widely rejected mistakes contained in its judgment on the Imo State governorship election.
It said: “Our party insists that the Supreme Court will be redeeming its image and restoring public confidence on its infallibility by reviewing the Imo verdict given the manifold unjustifiable mistakes contained in that judgment.”
The PDP restated that the miscarriage of justice in the Imo State judgment is glaring given the established fact that the panel assumed the roles of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by recognizing the votes concocted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Senator Hope Uzodimma, which ended up increasing the total number of votes in the election to 950,952, over and above the INEC certified total accredited votes of 823,743.
PDP said that in the miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court panel named Senator Uzodimma/APC as winner whereas it had on December 20, 2019 ruled that Uche Nwosu, and not Senator Uzodimma, won the APC governorship primary.
It said that the same Supreme Court had also disqualified Uche Nwosu from the election for having acquired the governorship ticket of two political parties — the APC and the Action Alliance (AA) — an aberration to the electoral laws.
Accordingly, it said: “Our party holds that a judicial review on Imo governorship election has become inevitable because by these earlier rulings of the Supreme Court, not only is Sen. Uzodimma not a candidate, the judgments also nullified all the votes that could have been accruable to APC and AA and their candidate, Uche Nwosu, in the election, leaving the PDP candidate, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, as the incontestable winner of the election.”
Meanwhile, there are still controversy whether or not the PDP scored the required one quarter of votes scored in two-thirds of the eight local government areas in Bayelsa State.
Below is the results in the eight local government areas as declared by INEC. PDP won in two local government areas and scored more than two-thirds in three local government areas.
Sagbama LGA
APC — 7, 831
PDP- 60, 339
Brass LGA
APC — 23, 831
PDP- 10, 410
Nembe LGA
APC — 83, 041
PDP- 874
Ekeremor LGA
APC — 21, 489
PDP- 18, 344
Kolokuma/Opokuma LGA
APC — 8, 934
PDP- 15, 360
Ogbia LGA
APC — 58, 016
PDP- 13, 763
Southern-Ijaw LGA
APC — 124, 803
PDP- 4, 898
Yenagoa LGA
APC — 24, 607
PDP- 19, 184
It is not clear what the two-thirds of eight local government areas of Bayelsa State is.
As at press time, INEC national commissioners and the chairman are still meeting in the Maitama office of the commission.
The Chief Press Secretary to INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, told THISDAY that the commission is still waiting for the certified true copy of the Supreme Court judgment.
As at 18.20 hours, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahood Yakubu, is still held up in meeting with the national commissioners.