The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are traded words over the pending application filed by the ruling party for the Supreme Court to review its judgment on the Zamfara State governorship election matter.
APC National Publicity Secretary Malam Lanre Issa-Onilu, in a statement issued yesterday, said PDP’s declaration that the Supreme Court had no option than to dismiss the pending application (by the APC) to review its judgment on the Zamfara State governorship election matter amounted to yet another effort by the opposition party to intimidate the apex court.
Issa-Onilu said it was “criminal and irresponsible” for a party that had once ran the country for an uninterrupted period of 16 years and voted out of power for “maladministration” to seek to bring the country down by taking actions or making statements targeted at undermining a critical state institution like the judiciary.
He called on the Supreme Court to focus on dispensing justice in the case of Zamfara State as well as other matters before it and ignore what it called the “irresponsible ranting of the PDP”.
“Unfortunately, they have failed woefully on the Zamfara matter, even as we reiterate that PDP is not a party to our intra-party matter before the Supreme Court.
“There is a world of difference between the Supreme Court review sought on the Zamfara matter and the matters that the Supreme Court dismissed regarding Imo and Bayelsa states.
“Unlike what happened in Bayelsa and Imo, in Zamfara, the Supreme Court is not being requested to review its decision, far from it. The unique thing about Zamfara’s case at the Supreme Court is that the APC is not attacking the judgement of their lordships but only praying that they vary their consequential order for the purpose of justice.
“That is where the PDP, who not being a party in the matter, is scared as it found itself to have immensely benefitted from our intra-party squabbles, by reaping where they never sowed.
“The Supreme Court had earlier affirmed that it has the powers to review its own decisions and that it is not averse to correcting error when that is noticed or when it is brought to its attention,” Issa-Onilu said.
However, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, advised APC to bury its thinking that the Supreme Court would review its judgment on the Zamfara State governorship election in its favour.
Ologbondiyan, who spoke with journalists on Saturday in Abuja, after a meeting with critical stakeholders from Zamfara State, urged the apex court to “resist the APC” and abide by its own verdict of not reviewing any judgment already delivered by it.
“The APC ploy is to arm-twist the apex court to review the case contrary to the already affirmed finality of the Supreme Court’s judgments as firmly established in the court’s judgment on Imo and Bayelsa election matters.
“The PDP is aware of the efforts being made by agents of the APC to blackmail and arm-twist the Supreme Court to commit a judicial summersault and give them judgment through the back door.
“…The Supreme Court had consistently decided on the finality of judgments reached at the court, which it reaffirmed in its judgments on the Bayelsa and Imo states governorship elections, where the apex court dismissed the applications for review on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction to review its own judgment.
“So, the inevitable fate of the APC application on Zamfara is to be dismissed. It cannot have any life before the Supreme Court. That is why the Supreme Court had no business in the first place reserving judgment on the matter.
“In fact, all issues bothering on review were never reserved for judgment but dismissed because of Supreme Court’s belief in the finality and infallibility of its own judgment,” PDP said.
