Special Adviser to the Cross River State governor on Media and Publicity, Christian Ita, has hit out at the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for dragging CRS governor, Ben Ayade to court demanding that he be removed as governor of the state.
Ita maintained in a press statement that, “In any case, given the relevant provisions of the constitution, they (PDP) are just jokers and jesters who are embarking on mere academic exercise for cheap headlines in the media.”
The PDP had last Thursday, approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking an order directing Ayade and Ivara Ejemot Esu, his deputy, to vacate office after the duo defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC, maintaining that they did not win the March 9, 2019 governorship election in the state.
In the suit sighted by www.calitown.com five Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, led by Emmanuel C. Ukala, representing the PDP, are seeking a judicial declaration giving the PDP an opportunity to nominate replacements to the seat of the governor and the deputy governor in Cross River State. They argued that the mandate given by the electorate in Cross River State was to the PDP not the APC and further that Ayade as the candidate of the PDP at the election, the governor cannot therefore transfer the mandate to APC or any other political party. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is joined as a defendant. They cite “… provisions of Section 221 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and the democratic system of governance operated in Nigeria, (that) votes at the election and elections are won by political parties and not their candidate or the candidates sponsored at the election by the political parties.”
The PDP is also praying that an order be granted, directing the1st defendant (INEC) “to immediately receive from the plaintiff (PDP), the name of its candidates to replace the 3rd and 4th defendants (Ayade and Esu) for the purpose of utilizing the lawful votes cast in favour of the plaintiff or in the alternative directing the 1st defendant to hold a gubernatorial election for Cross River State in accordance with Section 177 of the Constitution (excluding the 3rd and 4th defendants who are disqualified from participating in the election by virtue of Section 192 (1) (b) of the Constitution) arising from abandonment of the majority lawful votes and the offices occasioned by the action of the 3rd and 4th defendants by reason of their becoming members of the 2nd defendant who did not win majority of the lawful votes cast at the election.”
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