National, State Assembly Election Petition Tribunal’s verdicts in Abia, hogwash –B.B Apugo

Sun, Sep 15, 2019
By publisher
3 MIN READ

Politics

THE judgments of the national and state Assembly Election Petition Tribunal in Abia State are simply nonsense and a scam.
This is the view of Abia chieftain Apugo, who also insisted that the exercise was bunkum and nothing to write home about.
Said Apugo “The entire judgment is nonsense, bunkum, and they are nothing to write home about. They were a scam. Here, I am not talking only about that of (Senator) Orji Uzor Kalu, but all the judgments delivered were out o the way. In Abia State, all the evidential documents brought to the court by APC candidates were not looked into and the judges delivered judgment based on what they believed suited them.
He said it was wrong for the Tribunal to have declared the judgment of Senator Kalu on the supplementary basis but said there was no cause for alarm as he was capable of getting victory no matter how many times the election is conducted.
“On the case of Kalu, it was wrong for the tribunal to have declared for supplementary in some units in two local governments where INEC could not declare results in those areas based on irregularities which were in tandem with the electoral Law. The Law was explicit on that but the judges looked the other way round.
“The truth remains that even if the supplementary election is conducted in any part of Abia North, Kalu will still win again and again; there is no argument about that. If a supplementary election is conducted in Abia-North 100 times, PDP will not defeat Kalu” he noted.
According to him “Let me tell you one thing, it is very wrong that when Election Petition Tribunals are set up for Abia, it becomes the state government that will provide accommodation and logistics for them and even food.
“Before now, when cases like these came up they were adjudicated outside the state to remove any iota of bias from the judges. The electoral matter between Kalu and Chief Onyema Ugochukwu was heard at Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The same thing happened during the case of Chief T.A Orji.
“The Federal Government should look into this matter so that when a case is involving a member of the ruling party in the state and another person, the matter should be transferred to another state so that justice will prevail because the person challenging those in power in the state have no access to members of the Tribunal, but those in power eat and dine with them before judgment is given; they are indeed influenced as was witnessed in their verdicts.

Sunonline

– Sept. 15, 2019 @ 15:45 GMT |

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