APPEAL COURT JUDGEMENT: GENERATION NEXT ADDRESSES ISSUES RAISE BY PDP GROUP CONSTITUTIONALLY
It is important to respond to some of the misconceived issues raised in the said Press Conference as follows:
1. The group members claim to be lovers of democracy but are curiously supporting a political party that has shown complete disregard for the tenets of democracy and the rule of law. It only goes to say that the group is clearly an undemocratic one as much as it is unknown.
2. The group is challenging the sound decisions of the Court of Appeal that nullified the elections of Sen. Simon Mwadkon of Plateau North, Hon. Musa Agah of Jos North/Bassa and Hon. Isaac Kwallu of Quaanpan, Shendam, Mikang. While this is clearly an affront on the judiciary, we wish to state that the Court of Appeal only reaffirmed its decisions of 28th October, 2022 against Musa Agah and Peter Dasaat.
3. While admitting that there was an order by Justice Gang for the PDP to conduct a repeat congress, the group claimed that the PDP conducted a repeat congress on 25th September, 2021.
Meanwhile, in all the petitions before the tribunal, the PDP and its candidates tendered a report of the said congress and on page 2 of their own document, it is written thus: “The Electoral College Comprises of the following as voters-1. Delegates from Wards and few LGA EXCO (12 LGAs excluded following legal issues)”.
Admittedly by their own document in court, only 5 LGAs participated on the said congress. Plateau State comprises of 17 LGAs. How democratic is that purported congress? It must be noted that partial compliance to a specific order of court is complete disobedience to the said order.
4. The group also indicated that the State EXCOs do not conduct Primary Elections for the nomination and sponsorship of candidates. It also noted that it is the national working committee (NWC) of the Party that conducts primaries and that even if the NWC of the Party is not properly constituted, it is not the concern of anyone who is not a member of the party.
May we quickly submit that all the petitions filed by the APC at the Tribunal had nothing to do with the conduct of primaries by PDP. This is where their greatest misconception lies. The APC is challenging the qualification of all PDP candidates on the basis that the PDP lacks the structure upon which to sponsor those candidates since it has not obeyed clear court orders to form its structure (not primaries).
The question of qualification of candidates is both a pre and post-election matter as provided for in Sections 134(1) of the Electoral Act and Sections 65, 66, 106 and 107 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). These provisions clothe a candidate or political party to challenge the qualification of another political party or candidate who participated in an election.
5. The Court of Appeal made a profound pronouncement in deciding the case between Hon. John Dafaan v. Isaac Kwallu when it held that for the failure to obey the order of Justice Gang, all candidates that contested under the platform of PDP in Plateau State, contested as independent candidates and our laws do not support independent candidature. This is also because on nothing, nothing can stand.
The PDP had no presence as a registered political party in Plateau State as at the time of the Election and thus could not and cannot claim to have validly sponsored candidates. The structure upon which it would have derived the authority or vires to sponsor candidates for elections was collapsed by a nullification order of a court of competent jurisdiction which is still valid and subsisting. It is upon this dismantled and non-existent structure that the candidates of the PDP claimed to have been sponsored to contest the election.
6. All the cases mentioned by the group that released the press conference under review, are completely inapplicable as they clearly had to do with the conduct of primaries and nothing to do with the structure of the party as is the case in Plateau State. But for added measure, even the case of Jegede V. INEC cited by the group does not help them. The Supreme Court in that case held thus:
“…the Tribunal erred in its holding that it had no jurisdiction to entertain and determine the issue of sponsorship of the 3rd and 4th Respondents as candidates of the 2nd respondent for the election of Governor of Ondo State, that the Appellants as contestants in that election had locus standi to challenge the qualification of the 3rd and 4th Respondents as candidates for the election due to invalid sponsorship by the 2nd respondent …
“The appellants, who are also cross-respondents in the cross-appeals, do not need to be members of the political parties sponsoring the other candidates against them in order to have locus standi to challenge the qualification of the other candidate(s) contesting them. The fact that the candidates returned were on the ballot against them, the appellants, and contested the election with them is what clothes or vests in them the right or the standing in law to challenge the return made from the election on the permissible grounds for challenging the return, including the ground that the person returned was not qualified to contest at the election or that his sponsorship to INEC as a candidate did not follow the due process of law
“…On this ground I will not hesitate to dismiss offhand the contention that the appellants lack the locus standi or reasonable cause of action on which to found their petition.
“…It is therefore, my firm view that the appellants, as the petitioners, had genuine locus standi when they initiated the petition, the subject of this appeal; and that their petition was filed in accordance with section 285(5) of CFRN, as altered.
A defective sponsorship denies the qualification to contest an election. It appears that all parties herein are ad idem that a person is by the Constitution and Laws of this Country, qualified to contest an election only if he was duly sponsored as a candidate by a political party…”
7. The group is whipping sentiments and making insinuations of a grand plan against Plateau State and middle belt. This is laughable as all the candidates that contested under the APC, LP and other political parties are all Plateau indigenes and part of the middle belt. Except of course, if they have reduced the middle belt to mean their structureless Party.
Again, trying to intimidate the courts with threats of an assumed “aftermath of any further decision…” is not only incongruous but an aberration to say the least, coming from a group who claimed to be democratic.
The APC has not committed any wrong by going to court to seek redress against a Party that has shown clear disregard to court orders. It is indeed the position of the law that a party in disobedience of court orders does not have a right of audience in the court.
8. Calling on the Supreme Court to wade into what they referred to as “apparent destruction of legal precedence…”, is indeed a travesty. This same people celebrated all the judgments they won at the Tribunal and credited it to the judiciary as justice delivered. However, when they lost some judgments at the Tribunal, they rained down insults and threatened the judges of that panel of the Tribunal. They are now doing the same to the adored Justices of the Court of Appeal with reckless abandon.
The question we must ask is whether justice can only be said to be done when PDP wins in court.
We therefore call on the Supreme Court and the NJC to disregard the purported press conference as cases are not won on the media but on evidence before the court.
SIGNED:
GENERATION NEXT MEDIA
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