The Peoples Democratic Party Governors Forum on Friday said the nullification of elections of the party’s governors was aimed at taking control of “oil-producing states by all means necessary” by the ruling All Progressive Congress.
Reacting to the nullification of the election of Akwa Ibom State governor, Udom Emmanuel, by the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday, the forum said the judgments were part of the grand plan of the APC to take over the state.
PDP governors alleged that Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, had canvassed that it was a national security risk for the oil-rich states to be controlled by the opposition.
The coordinator of the forum, Osaro Onaiwu, in a statement said the judiciary must rise above partisan influence if it must protect not only its sanctity and integrity, but also the country’s democracy and rule of law.
“The nullification of the election of His Excellency, Governor Udom Emmanuel by the Court of Appeal on Friday in Abuja should worry all those who truly desire good for this country.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the APC is bent on foisting a one-party state in Nigeria and to do so, it is ready to compromise the judiciary, destroy every fibre of integrity and sanctity of the judicial process through state compromise of the judiciary.
“For 16 years that the PDP governed, it respected the right to opposition and did not balkanise the judiciary as we have witnessed in the past seven months of the APC regime,” the governors said.
The governors further said the nation’s judiciary is “tele-guided by a puppet master in Lagos”, and that state apparatus “will soon collapse because a people’s will to choose their leaders can never be negotiated or mortgaged out of desperation”.
The governors expressed confidence that the people of Akwa Ibom State would resist the “obnoxious decline into fascism as was demonstrated recently in Bayelsa State, where the people stood firm against state terror and attempted imposition by the APC”.
