The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State has advised the Labour Party (LP) to accept the ruling of the Court of Appeal, which sacked Senator Darlington Nwokocha from the Senate.
In a statement signed by Abraham Amah, its Vice Chairman and acting Publicity Secretary in Abia, the party insisted that the judgement of the Appeal Court was final on the matter, and could not be reserved.
The party, which said it was reacting to reports credited to the LP Chairman in Abia State, Ceakay Igara, where he rejected the court’s declaration of Austin Akobundu as duly elected senator for Abia Central, advised the LP to obey court orders by accepting the removal of Senator Darlington Nwokocha and support PDP and Austin Akobundu’s legal victory.
The PDP, which said that it came to the Appeal Court with 19 grounds of appeal, informed that Section 77 is both a pre-election and post-election matter, arguing that the LP could not defend most of the grounds the PDP brought to the Appeal Court.
The umbrella party also claimed that a circular from the Labour Party in Ikwuano LGA, was allegedly calling LP’s members to a solidarity rally to protest the judgement of the Court of Appeal, saying that such outing was unheard of in democratic history.
The statement read in part:
“Another document is the press conference addressed by the Chairman of the Abia Labour Party, Mr. Cheeky Igara, wherein he assumed the position of Judge Extraordinaire to lecture Abians, Nigerians and the press on why the judgement of a validly constituted court should not stand because a member of his party was removed from office.
“According to Igara, “we are more shocked by the rascality of the judiciary, especially muscling judgements, divisive judgements”.
“It is unbecoming of a party to make a public declaration to reject the judgement of a court of competent and final jurisdiction and ask it to review its judgement because that is nothing but a call to anarchy.
“Furthermore, the Labour Party also conveniently ignored the fact that the Court of Appeal also took cognizance of the rejected votes in some polling units which was on the petition of the PDP,” the statement said.
The opposition party also said that the LP did not provide a copy of the Appeal Court judgement to members of the press during the press conference before calling for reversal of judgement, even as it berated the LP for not protesting when judgements went in their favour.
Apart from these, the PDP said said any protest against the Appeal Court ruling could cause security breach in Abia.
It, however, urged all PDP members to remain calm in Abia.
