A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State, Mr Cletus Obun, is confident that his party will win again at the Supreme Court.
He stated this in reaction to the judgement of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal which affirmed President Muhammadu Buhari’s election.
Obun said the APC would only lose at the apex court if lawyers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were sitting in the stead of judges.
According to him, the APC is not bothered by the decision of the opposition party to challenge the Tribunal’s ruling as the judgement, for them, is perfect.
“I think APC is suffocated with confidence and I do tell Nigerians that there is nothing to worry about. There must be an end to litigation,” the former lawmaker avowed during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
He added, “Until maybe we have to get PDP lawyers as judges so that we can now satisfy them, otherwise what we have now is mere perfect, impregnable and completely unassailable in law and in fact.”
A Fundamental Lie?
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the PDP had challenged the election of President Buhari at the Tribunal, saying he did not qualify to contest the February 23 poll, among other prayers.
On Wednesday last week, a five-man panel of judges in a unanimous judgement ruled that the President was eligible to run and that he won the election.
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While defending the President, Obun dismissed claims of interference with judicial processes by the Buhari administration.
He highlighted the situation where the PDP was declared the winner of the elections in Zamfara State after the APC had won in the election.
The APC chieftain also noted that while supporters were celebrating the President’s victory at the Tribunal, party members in Cross River were sad that they lost in court.
He said, “This President, I insist, in our political history is the first incumbent president who allows and has given open space to everybody to play his game otherwise, you cannot have the President’s party not qualified to run an election … to the point that they even won an election and we were taken out of government, as it happened in Zamfara.
“And today, go and check the records, the President’s party has lost in court more than any other party. APC has lost more members; has lost more elections in the court than any other political party in this country.”
On the claims by a PDP member, Segun Sowunmi, that the President told a fundamental lie about his certificate, Obun stressed, “That he lied in a fundamental manner; the fundamental, as enshrined and is contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, is that in lying, that lie hinders you to qualify.”
“He (Buhari) has admitted and several of them have admitted that on other grounds, Buhari is not just qualified, he is eminently qualified but that what he said he has, he did not show.
“The lie must be fundamental to the extent that if that lie was not told, he would not have qualified,” the APC chieftain explained.
