Sen. Magnus Abe has said he will approach the Supreme Court for a final resolution of the party’s legal problems in presenting governorship and state Assembly candidates for the elections.
Abe spoke while reacting to the striking out of his application by the Appeal court in Port Harcourt.
He
said that he would do what he could to get judgment from the Supreme
Court before the governorship and State Assembly elections on March 9.
“We
have approached the Court of Appeal to help resolve the logjam arising
out of the current situation in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in
Rivers. As you will recollect, there is a voided indirect primaries that
was conducted here in the state, which has been declared void up to
Supreme Court.
” There was a direct primary that was conducted by
the state chapter of the party which the party and the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) has refused to accept because of
the party’s insistence on sticking by the illegal conduct of the
primaries.
“So we had approached the Federal High Court for a
resolution of that matter and today we were before the Appeal Court for a
review of the decision of the Federal High Court and the Court of
Appeal surprisingly refused to go into the merits of the case, holding
that the case was covered by the decision of the Supreme Court in
respect of the earlier case against the conduct of the indirect
primaries.
“We believe that is not the sum of the judgment of the
Supreme Court and so in consultation with our lawyers, we have asked
them to approach the Supreme Court for a final resolution of that
matter.
“Unfortunately, we are now fighting hard because time is
fast running out for the legal options that are available to us. So we
will do what we can to get the Supreme Court consider the matter before
the rest of the elections are held here in the state,” he said.
Abe said that the crisis in the party does not affect the presidential election.
“We
just addressed some of our youths, non-indigenes, some major
stakeholders and our objective is to see that there is effective
mobilisation of people to come out on Saturday to vote for the
President, despite some challenges that we have faced internally in the
party.
“We are working on that and we are getting positive
responses from Rivers people and we believe that they will come out
en-masse to vote for the president,” the senator stated.
Abe also
stated that the Mr President’s order to the security agents to deal
with those who want to disrupt the election and snatch ballot boxes was a
very re-assuring statement for the safety of the country’s democracy
and the safety of all Nigerians as they go out to vote during the
general elections.
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