APC Tackles Fayose on Akwa Ibom Tribunal Ruling

The Akwa Ibom State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the comments credited to Ekiti State Governor,  Ayodele Fayose, accusing the APC and  President Mahammadu Buhari of meddling in the judicial process as false, “rascally inspired” and maliciously intended.

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Engr Ita Awak, the party said: “Contrary to the hypocritical posturing of Fayose, it is the PDP and Senator Godswill Akpabio's puppet regime in Akwa Ibom that should be accused of unwholesomely meddling in the affairs of the tribunals judging by all that has played out so far in both the National Assembly and State House of Assembly and the Akwa Ibom State Governorship Election Petition Tribunals".

The party added: “No averagely intelligent person can conclude that the judgment handed down by the Justice Sadiq Umar-led panel is in favour of the APC in Akwa Ibom as the party's prayer was for
total annulment of the violent, irregular and unacceptably fraudulent governorship election of April 11, 2015.

"We have been compelled to make the above assertion for the following reasons: Long before the Akwa Ibom State National Assembly and State House of Assembly Tribunals started reading out their final judgements on petitions brought by APC candidates, high ranking officers of both the Udom interregnum and the PDP had confided in and assured their supporters that the N10 billion loan that Udom hurriedly got weeks ago was for the purpose of "settling" all the election panels for Akwa Ibom State".

According to Awak,  "The PDP chiefs and government officials also assured their aides and followers that because of this uncommon ‘settlement’, all the tribunals in charge of Akwa Ibom petitions were going to invent reasons to jettison the ‘card reader’ reports so as to justify the fraudulent votes that the INEC officials in Uyo awarded in favour of PDP candidates."

He continued: "It is a fact that chieftains of Akwa Ibom PDP and government knew the date Justice Sadiq Umar-led panel will deliver judgement on the governorship election one whole week earlier and went into massive mobilisation of its members and giving them uniforms they were to wear in celebration of the verdict,"

The party expressed dismay that the Secretary of the Governorship Tribunal only “told APC lawyers of the Wednesday date fixed for judgment at about 1:00 pm on Tuesday and a day to the judgment”.

"Very importantly, members of Akwa Ibom PDP already knew by Monday, clear two days to the day judgment was read, that the governorship election will be cancelled in a few local government areas in favour of the PDP and a "rerun" ordered. While the APC in Akwa Ibom State regard our judges in the tribunals in high esteem and have explicit confidence in the integrity of the Nigerian judiciary, we are deeply worried that all the issues that officials of the Udom regime and PDP openly boasted of, bordering on the dangerous compromise of high officers of our judicial system, have interestingly come to pass", the party said.