The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, have condemned Saturday’s judgment of the Taraba State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sacked Darius Ishaku in favour of Aisha Alhassan as another evidence of executive interference in the judiciary.
They both accuse the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of brazen connivance with the judiciary.
The PDP said the reason given by the tribunal for arriving at its decision is intriguing and further exposes the contradictions and double standards inherent in most tribunal rulings against its interests recently.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, said in a statement on Saturday that the “Taraba state tribunal ruling again brings 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.”
The PDP said if the tribunal was faulting the party’s 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 PDP said 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”, it said.
PDP said it was totally confounded by the “brazen show of power by the executive and warned that the development clearly portends grave danger to our democracy and indeed national cohesion and development”.
The party called on its members across the country, especially in Taraba state, to remain undaunted as the appellate courts will restore its well-deserved victory.
For Fayose, the ruling is a ridiculous political judgement that can never stand before men of good conscience and God.
He called on the Supreme Court to save the country from impending anarchy.
In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Lere Olayinka, Fayose, like the PDP, wondered how a tribunal could make conduct of the PDP primary that produced Ishaku in Abuja an issue when the tribunal itself sat in Abuja.
He said; “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.”
While reiterating his commitment to speaking the truth in the overall interest of Nigerians, Governor Fayose said; “If everybody is persecuted and intimidated to submission, I will remain resolute in my resolved to always say the truth before men and God.”
