The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and garrulous governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state have faulted the today’s judgment of the Taraba state gubernatorial election tribunal in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Hajia Aisha Jummai Alhassan.
While PDP through its National publicity secretary, Olisa Metu described it as another evidence of executive interference in the judiciary, Fayose said that there was a conspiracy by the APC-led federal government and a section of the judiciary against the PDP.
PDP insisted that the reason given by the tribunal for arriving at what it called ‘bizarre decision’ is intriguing and that it further exposed the contradictions and double standards inherent in most tribunal rulings against PDP interests recently.
Metuh in a statement today said that the Taraba state tribunal ruling had again brought to the fore, the organized plan by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC Federal Government to deploy all unorthodox means to decimate the opposition.
“It is rather curious and a great conflict of irony that the Taraba tribunal sitting in Abuja on security grounds faulted the conduct of PDP primaries shifted to the same Abuja on security reasons.”
PDP said that if the tribunal is faulting the party primaries as basis for its decision, it then means that no APC gubernatorial candidate can stand the test, as their party never had acceptable primaries in any of their states.
The party wanted democracy watchers globally to recall that it had earlier alerted the nation and the international community of the grand design by the APC to use the judiciary to wrestle some PDP states, particularly Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Taraba states.
“Evidence that Taraba ruling was a product of Presidency manipulation can be deduced from the fact that few hours before the judgment was delivered, the APC had arrogantly announced their victory on the new media.”
PDP said it is totally confounded by the brazing show of power by the executive and warned that the development clearly portends grave danger to our democracy and indeed national cohesion and development.
It called on its members across the country, especially in Taraba state to remain undaunted as the appellate courts will restore its well-deserved victory.
This was even as governor Fayose called on the Supreme Court to save the country from impending anarchy, adding in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, that the tribunal would resort to the mere PDP primary that produced Governor Ishaku in Abuja as a big issue even when the tribunal itself sat in Abuja.
“How does the emergence of party candidate, which is the clear internal business of the party and a pre-election matter concern the APC and the Election Tribunal?
“Isn’t it funny that it is no longer about election rigging, but technicality of how PDP candidates emerged even when no one in the PDP went to court to challenge how Governor Ishaku emerged as the PDP governorship candidate?
“If insecurity could make Taraba State Tribunal sit in Abuja and not in Jalingo, how then can it be justified that the same tribunal that sat in Abuja nullified the governor’s election because the primary election that produced him too was held in Abuja?
“Is it not being manifested in this President Muhammadu Buhari led APC government that what is good for some people may not be good for others even though we operate the same constitution?
“To me and the teeming supporters of the PDP, this judgement is one that must not be allowed to stand. It is a clear miscarriage of justice and we will seek redress from the court of men and the court of God.”
The governor reiterated his commitment to speaking the truth in the overall interest of Nigerians, saying: “If everybody is persecuted and intimidated to submission, I will remain resolute in my resolved to always say the truth before men and God.” [myad]
