*Charge us for contempt, commission tells aggrieved parties
Kuni Tyessi in Abuja
Founding Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise Chief Edozie Njoku as the authentic chairman of the party.
Okorie, who is the presidential candidate of the Njoku-led National Working Committee, expressed surprise that INEC was yet to recognise Njoku as the chairman of the party despite a Supreme Court ruling sacking Victor Oye.
Both Oye and Njoku have been laying claims to the leadership of the party ahead of the 2023 general election.
Speaking at a media briefing yesterday in Abuja, Okorie noted that the Supreme Court had in its 2021 ruling on the leadership tussle of APGA misplaced Njoku’s name with that of Oye, adding that following the letter addressed to Justice Mary Odilli of the Supreme Court, same has now been corrected, thus making him the APGA authentic national chairman.
When contacted, INEC National Electoral Commissioner for Information and Voter
Education, Festus Okoye, said the commission won’t trade words with anyone.
According to Okoye, any party that is dissatisfied with the commission’s action should file a contempt proceeding against the commission.
He said: “If a court order has been served on the commission and the commission willingly refuses to obey the judgment, what the judgement creditor ought to do is to file a contempt proceeding against the commission. So if they believe that they have a judgement that has been served on the commission and we have refused to obey it, they should file contempt proceeding against the commission.”
Meanwhile, Okorie said the corrected judgment has been subjected to “repeated verification and unwarranted investigation without finding faults either with the veracity of the correction or its authenticity.”
He wondered why it is taking INEC so long to comply with the corrected judgement, saying the commission promptly complied with the October 14, 2020 judgment of the apex court which contained the mistake.
According to him, “In fact INEC complied within the 48 hours of its delivery, the same INEC has turned its face away from the duly corrected judgment nearing 60 days after the correction.
“It is pertinent to state that for the first time in 18 years, since 2004, there is no APGA leadership dispute pending in any courts in Nigeria. Judgments in suit numbers FHC/BAU/CS/10/2021 and SC/CV/686/2021 unambiguously affirmed Chief Edozie Njoku as the lawful and authentic national chairman of APGA, thus the only national chairman of the party legally qualified to nominate valid candidate to contest the 2023 general election the platform of APGA.
“INEC must have an ulterior intention to instigate another round of litigations in a political party that has finally found peace after 18 long years of various forms of leadership crises, some of which were fuelled by INEC. INEC should give APGA the liberty and latitude to develop and grow like other political parties.
“APGA is one of the two oldest surviving political parties in Nigeria along with the PDP, but has suffered a debilitating stunted growth due to unprecedented prolonged leadership crises.”
Okorie maintained that Oye has no claim to any lawful national convention of APGA, adding that the candidature of those whose names and particulars have been submitted to INEC by Oye are not sustainable and cannot stand the test of judicial scrutiny.
