The Abia State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on the Labour Party (LP) in the State to accept the ruling of the Court of Appeal, sacking LP Senator Darlington Nwokocha from the Senate.
The PDP in a statement signed by Abraham Amah, its Vice Chairman and acting Publicity Secretary, insisted that the judgement of the Appeal Court was final on the matter, and could not be reserved.
The party 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 noted that it came to the Appeal Court with 19 grounds of appeal, averring that Section 77 is both a pre-election and post-election matter, saying the LP could not defend most of the grounds the PDP brought to the Appeal Court.
The PDP posited that a circular from the Labour Party in Ikwuano LGA, calling LP’s members to a solidarity rally to protest the judgement of the Court of Appeal was unheard of in democratic history.
Part of the statement read:
“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 PDP accused the LP of not providing 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.
The PDP finally noted that any protest against the Appeal Court ruling could cause security breach in Abia.
