The All Progressives Congress, APC, has lambasted a Federal High court judge, Adeniyi Ademola, for saying on Monday that the 37 lawmakers who defected from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the APC had no business being in the Assembly.
Mr. Ademola, while delivering judgement in a suit filed by the PDP, stated that the lawmakers no longer had any business, morally and legally, to stay in the House of Representatives. He said they should honourably resign from their seats as members, having moved to another political party while their tenure was yet to expire.
Media reports had suggested that Mr. Ademola’s remarks meant that the defected lawmakers would cease to hold their offices in the National Assembly.
The APC said the judge gave no such order because it was not in his power to issue such a ruling, as the issue of whether the lawmakers could defect or not was not before him.
The APC said the judge gave no such order because it was not in his power to issue such a ruling, as the issue of whether the lawmakers could defect or not was not before him.
The judge, however, ruled that the decampee lawmakers could not effect a change in the House leadership.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party, however, said it would appeal the ruling because Justice Ademola’s perpetual injunction restraining the lawmakers concerned from participating in motions and debates in the House was unconstitutional and defeated the very purpose for which the members were elected into the House.
APC asked the Chief Justice of Nigeria to act urgently to sanction Mr. Ademola for engaging in mischief that could bring the bench into disrepute.
APC recalled the alarm it raised in a statement on December 14, 2013, that the PDP was shopping for a pliant Judge who would be heavily induced to do the PDP’s bidding in the case over the defections from the ruling party to the APC.
In that statement, the main opposition party warned against any attempt by the PDP and the presidency to induce a servile and disreputable judge to do the duo’s bidding.
Quoting from that statement, APC said: ”We recognise the efforts of the present CJN to sanitise the Judiciary since she assumed the mantle of leadership but she should not allow any black leg to reverse the gains that have been recorded on the altar of unmitigated avarice. This is because if that happens, Nigerians will hold the Judiciary vicariously liable for the catastrophic consequences that may follow.”
Noting that its alarm had now proven to be prescient, the party said it wondered whether there was any link between what is ‘an exercise in judicial rascality’ and President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent boast in Kwara that the PDP would soon retrieve its ‘stolen’ mandate from those who defected from the PDP to the APC.
”That presidential boast raises the following questions: What did the President know and when did he know it? Was this judgement procured by the PDP for a price, in which case the President’s statement amounted to a Freudian slip? Are we to expect more of this?
”It is necessary to unravel this so the PDP and the presidency, in their desperation, will not paint the judiciary with their brush of failure and crash our democracy,” the APC said.
The party urged its supporters not to panic as the judgement was, according to it, intended to cause mischief. It added that the plan by the PDP and the Presidency had fallen like ‘a pack of cards.’
Source: Premiumtimesng
No comments:
Post a Comment