General

PDP: Presidency manipulated Taraba tribunal

November 7, 2015 5:19 pm

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says Saturday’s judgment of the Taraba state governorship election petition tribunal in favour of Aisha Alhassan, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was manipulated by the presidency.

The party said the reason given by the tribunal for arriving at the decision was intriguing and further exposed the contradictions and double standards inherent in most tribunal rulings against PDP interests recently.

Olisa Metuh, PDP national publicity secretary, said in a statement on Saturday: “The ruling of the tribunal brought to the fore the organised plan by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC federal government to deploy all unorthodox means to decimate the opposition.

“It is rather curious and a great conflict of irony that the Taraba tribunal sitting in Abuja on security grounds faulted the conduct of PDP primaries shifted to the same Abuja on security reasons.”

The PDP argued that if tribunal was basing its decision on the party’s primaries, “it then means that no APC governorship candidate could stand the test, as their party never had acceptable primaries in any of their states.”

The party said it wanted democracy watchers globally to recall that it had earlier alerted the nation and the international community of the grand design by the APC to use the judiciary to wrestle some PDP states, particularly Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Taraba states.

“Evidence that Taraba ruling was a product of presidency manipulation can be deduced from the fact that few hours before the judgment was delivered, the APC had arrogantly announced their victory on the new media”, it said.

“The PDP is totally confounded by the brazen show of power by the executive and warns that the development clearly portends grave danger to our democracy and indeed national cohesion and development.”

Finally, the party called on its members across the country, especially in Taraba state, to remain undaunted as the appellate courts will restore its well-deserved victory.”