The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on friday, vows to appeal the judgement delivered by an Abuja High Court in Cross River in favour of Governor Ben Ayade.
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, had on Thursday dismissed PDP’s suit, seeking to declare vacant, the governorship seats of Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, and his deputy, Prof. Ivara Ejemot Esu, over defection from the PDP to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Justice Taiwo Taiwo in his ruling on Thursday, held that governors and their deputies can only be removed from office in line with sections 180, 188 and 189 of the Constitution, which stipulated that they can only be removed from office on account of death, resignation or impeachment.
According to the judgment, defection is not one of the Constitutional provisions, no court has power to insert such into the Supreme Law.
Reacting to the judgement, Cross River State chapter of the PDP in a statement issued on Friday by its Chairman, Vena Ikem, said proceeding to the Appeal Court would remain “a civilised struggle and an intellectual exploration of the limits and vastness of our jurisprudence in this untested territory.”
The party said they will not rest until they get justice.
The PDP had approached the High Court in Abuja over Ayade’s defection to the ruling APC with its governorship mandate, describing it as a provocation by unscrupulous elements, who were mistakenly given the mandate of the party in the past.
“We will be studying the judgement in its entirety with the certainty of appealing to the next Court of Law, until justice is manifestly done.
“The judgement of yesterday by the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja is yet another successful exploration of the dept of legal jurisprudence in uncharted territory such as we have at hand. Let me assure you that this judgement is only a step in the overall picture envisaged by our lawyers when they took steps to explore this legal option which has the potential to take both the Judiciary and indeed our entire democracy to another level entirely.
“We will continue to support our lawyers as they lead us in this battle for the soul of our democracy and good governance of our people”, the statement read in part.
It hailed party stakeholders and supporters for not allowing Ayade to sleep well “with our stolen mandate and will continue to keep them sleepless for the remainder of the tenure, which they shamelessly flaunt at us who made it happen.”
According to the statement, Ayade has regretted what they described as an ill-fated adventure to APC, adding that they “will continue to drive the message home that it was the PDP that was elected to govern Cross River People in 2019, because our people are PDP, body and soul, and not APC.”
It further consoled party supporters not to be dampened by temporary setbacks by yesterday’s judgement and urged them to remain focused as the ‘bigger picture’ will only birth after the Supreme Court gives its verdict on all issues related to the matter.
