The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Plateau State wishes to applaud the landmark judgement of Friday 27th October, 2023 by the Court of Appeal, Jos Division, sitting in Abuja, over the petitions filed by the APC leading to the sack of the PDP’s Hon. Isaac Kwallu and Hon. Musa Agah, both of them now former Members of the House of Representatives.
Statement made available to this medium and was Signed Hon. Sylvanus Namang,
APC State Publicity Secretary congratulate Chief John Moenwul Dafaan over his sweet victory as the Member-Elect Representing Shendam/Qua’an-Pan/Mikang Federal Constituency.
This fair, firm and unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal has, indeed, portrayed the Judiciary as a hallowed temple of Justice. Its stand is a deft move towards protecting and preserving the integrity and independence of the Judiciary.
This is in spite of mischievous attempts by the opposition PDP in the State to put the Judiciary on a needless social media trial through several ill-motivated smear campaigns. The judgment is unprecedented, sound and historic in all ramifications.
Though we are not in any way pre-empting the outcome of the subsequent judgments of the Court of Appeal on the Governorship and remaining National Assembly as well as State Assembly Election Petitions, we foresee the looming Tsunami that would exterminate the PDP once and for all, and bring back the APC to power in the State. To say the least, the judgment is a page-turning development in the annals of our jurisprudence, as the judges have stood very strong and tall in their decisions regardless of all the innuendos, blackmail and emotional outbursts of the sinking and structure less PDP.
We are particularly satisfied with the ratio decidendi of the judgment, one of which is the fact that, because “the PDP is in disobedience of court orders, it is not qualified to sponsor candidates for any election in the State”. An icing on the cake is one of the Court’s pronouncements that”candidates who contested on the platform of the PDP did so as Independent Candidates, and independent candidacy is alien to our Constitution”. We do not need a soothsayer to interprete the far-reaching legal implication of this judicial pronouncement.
The verdict has obviously captured the mood of the teeming citizenry of Plateau State. There is no gainsaying the fact that the five months of the PDP on the saddle of leadership in the State can be equated with being on the throes of hell.
On the Plateau today, it is a litany of agony and mourning across communities, households and families.
It is a fact that within this inglorious period, Plateau State citizens have been the worst for it. For instance, over 4000 newly employed personnel, all Plateau citizens, were sent out of their jobs despite the due process in their recruitment; 17 LGC duly-elected Chairmen and 325 Councillors were removed from office in contravention of the Constitution and extant laws of the land; civil servants are being owed three months salaries despite the over N40bn subventions so far received from the Federation Account; 7 Permanent Secretaries were removed in contravention of civil service rules; 34 DPMs and DFSs including 17 LG cashiers were also removed with no cogent reason.All these acts were perpetrated on the altar of vendetta-type politics!
Furthermore, our attention has just been drawn to a planned and State-sponsored protest tomorrow Tuesday 31st October, 2023 by the opposition PDP. The aim, we are aware, is to cause mayhem and thus throw the State into confusion well ahead of impending verdicts of the Tribunal and Court of Appeal. We therefore, call on security agencies to fish out and arrest the sponsors of the planned protest.
At this point, we are compelled to express our displeasure by frowning at recent bouts of adverse comments by the PDP against the personalities of some of the Judges especially on the well-considered Judgments of the Court of Appeal in favour of APC candidates. The attempt to malign and impugn the integrity of the Judiciary is a call to anarchy and we condemn such tendency in strong terms. The latest antics of the PDP shows clearly that it is not only drowning but is also living on borrowed time. This demonstration of madness by the PDP is well understood. A classical adage says: “a drowning person can clutch at every straw he sees in the river”.
