The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has congratulated its candidate, Diri Duoye, and the people of Bayelsa State on the Supreme Court judgment which gave victory to the party on April 16, 2019, gubernatorial election, but has told the apex court to do justice in the case of Imo State.
In its reaction to the judgment nullifying the election of the All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate, David Lyon, who had been declared the winner, the PDP said in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, that it had received the judgment but wanted the apex Court to right the wrongs in the Imo State governorship election judgment.
The party said the Bayelsa judgment would not change the course of its demand that the Supreme Court rectifies “the manifest and widely rejected mistakes contained in its judgment on the Imo state governorship election.”
The statement said: “Our party insists that the Supreme Court will be redeeming its image and restoring public confidence on its infallibility by reviewing the Imo verdict given the manifold unjustifiable mistakes contained in that judgment.”
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The PDP restated that the miscarriage of justice in the Imo State judgment was glaring given the established fact that the panel assumed the roles of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), by recognising the votes concocted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Senator Hope Uzodimma, which ended up increasing the total number of votes in the election to 950,952, over and above the INEC certified total accredited votes of 823,743.
The statement added: “In another miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court panel named Senator Uzodimma/APC as winner whereas it had on December 20, 2019, ruled that Uche Nwosu, and not Senator Uzodimma, won the APC governorship primary.
“The Supreme Court had also disqualified Uche Nwosu from the election for having acquired the governorship ticket of two political parties; the APC and the Action Alliance (AA), an aberration to the electoral laws.
“Our party holds that a judicial review on Imo governorship election has become inevitable because by these earlier rulings of the Supreme Court, not only is Sen Uzodimma not a candidate, the judgments also nullified all the votes that could have been accruable to APC and AA and their candidate, Uche Nwosu, in the election, leaving the PDP candidate, Hon Emeka Ihedioha, as the incontestable winner of the election.”
The PDP congratulated the people of Bayelsa State, the governor-elect, Senator Diri and his deputy governor-elect, Lawrence Ewrujakpor, “as their mandate has been restored.”