The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum expects that the Supreme Court will uphold the appeal court’s dismissal of Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang and Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal.
The PDP governors hailed the two rulings by the appellate court dismissing two of their members last week as “temporary setbacks” during a meeting in Abuja on Thursday.
Thursday’s meeting was held at the Abuja residence of Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State and had six other governors in attendance with some represented by their deputies.
In a communique issued at the end of their deliberations, the opposition governors said, “The meeting reviewed the recent judgments of the Court of Appeal concerning Governors of various States and noted the mixed outcomes.
“As a Forum, we once again re-state our overall confidence in the judiciary to do justice.
“We believe that the Supreme Court will do justice in the cases where we recorded temporary setbacks like Zamfara and Plateau States.”
About the off-season elections in Kogi, Bayelsa, and Imo states, the PDP governors “support the decision of INEC to investigate the allegation of existence of pre-filled result sheets even before elections started in some places to ensure the confidence of the people in the electoral process”.
In the last week, the appellate court sacked three governors that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared as winners in the March 2023 poll. All the three governors sacked by the appellate court are in opposition parties, fuelling concerns that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is using the judiciary to fight opposition parties but the APC has since denied such allegations.
The court sacked Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) and declared his APC counterpart, Nasir Gawuna, as the winner of the poll.
In Zamfara, the appellate court sacked PDP’s Lawal when it declared the poll inconclusive about eight months later. The court ordered INEC to conduct a fresh election in three local government areas of the state. PDP’s Lawal and APC’s Bello Matawalle are the major contenders in the race.
On Sunday, the appellate court sacked PDP’s Mutfwang and ordered INEC to issue a Certificate of Return to APC’s Nentawe Goshwe. The court held that the party violated the court order that a valid congress be conducted in the 17 local government areas of that state.
However, the appellate court affirmed the elections of APC governors including Babajide Sanwo-Olu in Lagos State, Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State and Bassey Otu of Cross River State.