The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State has strongly urged the Labour Party (LP) to accept the recent ruling delivered by the Court of Appeal, which resulted in the removal of Senator Darlington Nwokocha from his Senate position. The PDP emphasized that the Court of Appeal’s decision is final and cannot be reversed, as stated in a press release signed by Abraham Amah, the party’s Vice Chairman, and acting Publicity Secretary in Abia.
The PDP’s response comes in light of statements attributed to the LP Chairman in Abia State, Ceakay Igara, who rejected the court’s declaration of Austin Akobundu as the duly elected senator for Abia Central. The PDP’s advice to the LP is to respect the court’s orders, acknowledge the removal of Senator Darlington Nwokocha, and extend their support to PDP and Austin Akobundu’s legal victory.
The PDP asserted that it presented 19 grounds of appeal to the Appeal Court, highlighting that Section 77 encompasses both pre-election and post-election matters. They argued that the LP could not adequately defend against most of the grounds the PDP brought before the Appeal Court. Additionally, the PDP raised concerns about a circular from the Labour Party in Ikwuano LGA, which allegedly called for LP members to organize a rally in protest of the Court of Appeal’s judgment. The PDP considered such actions unprecedented in democratic history and discouraged any actions that could lead to security breaches in Abia.
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.