#PDP, APC trade words over Appeal Court judgment on Osun REC# >Judgment must be fully implemented —PDP >Elections of federal, state legislators in Osun not nullified —APC THE political brickbat between the Osun State chapters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, resumed a fresh dimension as both parties traded words over the Court of Appeal judgment in Akure, which struck out the appeal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ambassador Rufus Akeju’s eligibility to conduct the 2011 elections. The PDP, in a statement signed by its chairman in Osun State, Alhaji Gani Olaoluwa, tasked the judiciary to go the whole hog in ensuring that the appeal court judgement is implemented, even as it called for the removal of all federal and state legislators elected in 2011. Olaoluwa said INEC committed a grave and fundamental error by not obeying the judgement delivered by the Federal High court in February, 2011, saying the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal filed by INEC on the judgement that prevented Akeju from conducting the 2011 elections in the state, “then the elections are null and void and anyone produced in the elections should be sacked immediately.” But the APC contested the claims that the judgment nullified the elections of lawmakers at the state and federal level, calling on the PDP to produce the certified copy of the judgment rather than feed the public with lies and misinformation. The APC’s director of publicity, research and strategy, Mr Kunle Oyatomi, in a statement, maintained that “until the PDP can produce that certified true copy of the Appeal Court’s pronouncement, Nigerians and particularly the citizens of Osun should totally discountenance the PDP’s claim that the court has nullified the elections of their legislators”. According to the statement, “there is no such declaration by any court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. What the PDP has fed the public is not only a misinformation, it is a blatant lie”, stressing that the Court of Appeal neither made pronouncement on the substantive suit which is not before the Court of Appeal, but still pending in Osogbo, nor did it declare the elections of 2011 ‘null and void’ as the PDP is misleading Nigerians” However, the head of the PDP’s legal unit in Osun, Barrister Ojo Williams described the claim of the APC as baseless, pointing out that “the APC were not party to the case. From the legal perspective, all actions taken by Ambassador Taiwo Akeju after the injunction, restraining him from conducting presiding as REC, amounts to nullity”. “The court premised its judgment on the established affinity and connections of Akeju to the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and its national leader, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu. All the actions taken by him since the March, 2011 till July, 2014 when he proceeded on leave shortly before August 9, 2014 constitutes an illegality”, he asserted.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 06:33:33 +0000
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