‘Copy and paste rulings’ — Rivers APC rejects guber, n’assemby tribunal judgments

The Rivers chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the judgment of the governorship tribunal which affirmed the victory of Simnalayi Fubara as governor of the state.

The party also criticised the judgments of the national and state assembly elections tribunal for dismissing all the petitions of APC senatorial, house of representatives and house of assembly candidates.

On Monday, the governorship tribunal held that Tonye Cole, governorship candidate of the APC, could not prove the allegations raised against Fubara and the PDP.

Reacting in a statement on Thursday, Darlington Nwauju, spokesperson of Rivers APC, said the judges allowed themselves “to be ambushed by purely political innuendos” instead of the law.

“We consider the reason for arriving at the decision to dismiss the petition of our governorship candidate, as hypothetical and inconsistent with the position of the supreme court which had on the 14th of November 2003 in the case of Buhari & 2 Others Vs Obasanjo & 2 Others (Suit No. SC/194/2003 (Buhari Vs Obasanjo), held that a candidate in an election cannot be one and the same person with the political party that sponsored him and that the law gives them independent and distinct personality and rights,” the statement reads.

“And that they can file election petition together in their individual capacities; the law does not make them one and the same for the purposes of the petition.

“This is even made clearer by the construction of Section 133 subsection 1 of the amended Electoral Act (2022) where the Act unambiguously mentions those qualified to institute/file an election petition.

“We make haste to say that the three-man panel headed by Justice Cletus Emifonye allowed itself to be ambushed by purely political innuendos rather than speaking to the law which is abundantly clear as enumerated in the paragraph above.

“This judgement of the tribunal delivered on Monday 2nd October 2023 amounts to a mockery of the judiciary as a lower court disdainfully trashed the position of the highest court in the land as it is common knowledge that whatever the position of the Supreme Court is on a matter, becomes law.

“The 2nd of October ruling confirmed the fears of Rivers APC about getting justice in the face of iron cast evidences presented by our team of lawyers at the tribunal which includes the fact that the PDP Governorship candidate was as at the time he became candidate of his political party, still a serving accountant general of Rivers state.

“We roundly condemn the series of “copy and paste” rulings aimed at weakening the base of our party in Rivers State and call on the judiciary in the country not to jeopardize the democratic process by delivering rulings that have no foundation in law.”