*They were unjustly removed, says Supreme Court
*As INEC plans re-run polls
Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State has insisted that all the lawmakers from the State sacked by election tribunals in what the Supreme Court has ruled as unjust removal must be addressed and a remedy found for justice to be done in their cases.
The Supreme Court said last Friday while nullifying the Appeal Tribunal removal of Governor Mutfwang also held that the removal of the lawmakers by the Appeal Tribunal was unjust but did not make any further order.
This is as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has blamed its inability to conduct a court-ordered re-run election for the Plateau North senatorial district seat within 90 days on logistics, saying the election would be conducted alongside other bye-elections already slated for February 3. .
Said Governor Mutfwang, “I can tell you discussions are ongoing. It is work in progress and when we are done, I am sure Nigeria will get to know the path we have chosen to take. At the end of it these concerns for justice are well noted and I pray it becomes the value of our national existence,” Mutfwang said when he visited Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sunny Echono.
Plateau North senatorial seat became vacant following the sack late last year of Senator Simon Mwadkwon of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), by the Court of Appeal. Mwadkwon was at the time Senate minority leader.
On the same day, another panel at the Appellate court led by Justice Okon Abang nullified the victory of PDP’s Musa Avia representing Bassa North in the House of Representatives.
Following INEC’s declaration of Simon Mwadkwon as winner of the February 2023 senatorial election, All Progressivea Congress (APC) candidate Chris Giwa, as well of that of the Labour Party (LP), Gyang Zi challenged Mwadkwon’s declaration at the trubunal, but lost. They moved to the Court of Appeal.
On October 23, 2023, a three-man panel of the Court of Appeal led by Justice Daudu Williams held that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) could not have validly nominated Mwadkwon as the party did not obey a court order on the composition of its executive committees.
The court, however, ordered INEC to conduct re-run election for the senatorial zone within 90 days, and insisted that all the parties that participated in the annuled election be part of the fresh election.
The 90- day window ordered by the Court of Appeal lapses on Sunday January, 2024.
Anxiety had heightened in Plateau State few weeks after the Appeal Court judgement following reports that an official in INEC’s legal department tried to advise the commission to drop candidates of a particular political party.
However, INEC has dismissed such reports, saying in the case of rerun elections, it was bound by the order of the court to field the same candidates who participated the in the voided election.
Commissioner in charge of information and voter education, Sam Olumekun told The Authority that re-run imposed that all candidates who participated in any voided election were automatically eligible to participated in the polls fixed for February 13, 2023.
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