Oshiomhole: Zamfara people voted APC but supreme court imposed strangers on them

Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says the party did not get justice in Zamfara. 

Oshiomhole spoke in reaction to the supreme court judgment which sacked all the APC candidates who contested the 2019 elections in the state.

The apex court had ruled that the party did not hold valid primary elections, thus nullifying its participation in the polls.

Following the ruling, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the winner of all but one of the elective positions in the state.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Oshiomhole said the people voted the APC but the court imposed the PDP on them.

According to him, the court should have ordered a repeat of the election. He, however, said the party had accepted the ruling, adding that it will turn to “the court of God”.

“How can you ask me how I feel if the people of Zamfara voted for us in the manner that they did and the court says that those votes were wasted. Meanwhile, at the time those votes were cast, a high court had ruled that those candidates were validly nominated,” Oshiomhole said.

“There is something that I learnt from Lord Denning, a famous British Supreme Court Justice, that the law has to be interpreted taking into account the intention of the lawmakers and try to deliver justice in its purest form.

“So, there is no justice when on the ground of technicalities, you imposed on the people of Zamfara state, not just a man or a woman, but whole party candidates from governor to senate and others that they didn’t elect.

“If the court thought we were wrong, the justice would have demanded that we repeat. But you can not use technicalities because we are in a democracy, there is nothing democratic when the court imposed strangers to govern a people.

“But we understand that after the supreme court, we can only go to the Court of God. To that extent, we must obey the Court. But what we got in Zamfara is a judgment that didn’t translate to justice.”