As the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in Anambra State struggles with the Labour Party, LP, for the control of the political soul of the state, the presidential candidate of LP in the February 25 election, Mr. Peter Obi has insisted that he has no problem with the state governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo.
Obi’s position came on the heels of a statement credited to Soludo that constituencies that do not produce APGA members during Saturday’s House of Assembly election, would not be enjoying the dividends of democracy as lawmakers from such constituencies would only be paid their salaries, while those which produce APGA lawmakers would enjoy dividends of democracy.
In the February 25 national assembly election, LP produced two senators in the state, while APGA produced none, with LP also scoring over 80% of votes in the presidential poll.
Speaking with journalists on Saturday, March 11, 2023, after addressing candidates of LP for the House of Assembly in Awka, Obi said he told the candidates to go about their campaigns peacefully.
He said: ” By God’s grace, they will win on Saturday and contribute in building a better Anambra State. I thank those who are supporting us and I want the best candidates to win. Election is not war.
“Let me say categorically that I absolutely have no issue with the governor. Both of us remain friends and we enjoy the best of relationship.
“We can have political differences, but the fact remains that he is the governor of the state. I contested for the president of Nigeria which, to the best of my knowledge, he is not a contestant.
” I have told my people to go and campaign and win their election on March 18. Their duty as legislators is to work with the governor to ensure that he delivers dividends of democracy to the people. They should give him the necessary support in making laws that will help improve education, roads, health.
“The lawmakers do not perform executive functions and so, there is no way they can stop him from doing his work.
“He cannot ask them, as lawmakers from another political party, not to pass on the roads he built, or ask their children not to attend schools he built. If he provides water, they will drink it.
“So, I don’t see any conflict anywhere. If you work, people will benefit from it, even if you don’t like them. Maybe the governor was misquoted because a lot of things happen these days.”
Obi also spoke on the alleged decision of LP members in some states to support the governorship of other political parties, saying that it was individuals that give such support.
“We have a political party that is growing and that is why we are going around to urge our supporters to vote for our candidates,” he added.
12 SANs In Peter Obi’s Legal Team Revealed As Appeal Court Rules On BVAS
The Court of Appeal in Abuja is set to rule on the application filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) it used to conduct the 2023 presidential election, up which held on Saturday, February 27, 2023.
The court has set Wednesday, March 8, 2023, for the eagerly awaited ruling.
The legal team of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, a party in the suit, moved a motion requesting the court not to allow INEC to tamper with the evidence in the matter going to the Presidential Election Tribunal.
According to our findings, Obi’s legal team include at least twelve Senior Advocates of Nigeria. Some of them presented in order of seniority are Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN; Chief Awa Kalu, SAN; Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN; P.I.N. Ikwueto, SAN; Chief Ben Anyachebe, SAN; S.T. Hon, SAN; Arthur Obi Okafor, SAN; Ik Ezechukwu, SAN; J.S. Okutepa, SAN; Dr Mrs Valerie Azinge, SAN; Emeka Okpoko, SAN; and Alex Ejesieme, SAN.
According to an inside source, Obi’s legal team is still being constituted and “these are not all the senior advocates of Nigeria on the team. More are still signing up.”
Obi’s legal team had argued that the data on the BVAS contains the substance of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate’s case against INEC’s unlawful manipulation of the February 25 election’s results and processes.
The team informed the court that its forensic experts had not been granted access to INEC systems to inspect them before the said data transfer, and the said process is not clearly spelt out to all parties concerned.
Obi’s lawyers questioned the motives of INEC to be so hasty to compromise the principal evidence of the election umpire’s fraudulent manipulation of the election results.
In its response, the electoral body argued that it would transfer the data on the BVAS to a backup server. INEC wishes to clean up the BVAS for conducting the governorship and state legislative elections billed for Saturday, March 11, 2023.
The case is being heard by a three-person Court of Appeal panel headed by Justice Joseph Ikyegh.
The future of Nigeria’s democracy has come under scrutiny following the conduct of a flawed presidential election by INEC in which the electoral body declared the unpopular candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the winner.
The three main opposition parties, Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), have all rejected the election results announced by INEC.
LP and PDP, in an unprecedented move on February 28, 2023, jointly called for the resignation of the INEC chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu and for the cancellation of the exercise, which they described as a “travesty” and “rape of democracy”.
Mr Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra who ran for president with the backing of the youth population, is widely believed to have won the election by a wide margin, beating a former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, and the Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos governor with links to drug trafficking.
Source: Vanguard
