Taraba; Conclusive Evidence Of Judicial Double Standard Against The PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says Saturday's judgment of the
Taraba state gubernatorial election tribunal in favour of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Hajia Aisha Jummai Alhassan is
another evidence of executive interference in the judiciary.

The party said the reason given by the tribunal for arriving at the
bizarre decision is intriguing and further exposes the contradictions
and double standards inherent in most tribunal rulings against PDP
interests recently.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh said in a statement
on Saturday that the Taraba state tribunal ruling again brings to the
fore the organized plan by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC
Federal Government to deploy all unorthodox means to decimate the
opposition.

"It is rather curious and a great conflict of irony that the Taraba
tribunal sitting in Abuja on security grounds faulted the conduct of PDP
primaries shifted to the same Abuja on security reasons”, the party
stressed.

The PDP said if the tribunal is faulting the party primaries as basis
for its decision, it then means that no APC gubernatorial candidate can
stand the test, as their party never had acceptable primaries in any of
their states.

The PDP wants democracy watchers globally to recall that it had earlier
alerted the nation and the international community of the grand design
by the APC to use the judiciary to wrestle some PDP states, particularly
Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Taraba states.

“Evidence that Taraba ruling was a product of Presidency manipulation
can be deduced from the fact that few hours before the judgment was
delivered, the APC had arrogantly announced their victory on the new
media”, it said.

PDP said it is totally confounded by the brazing show of power by the
executive and warned that the development clearly portends grave danger
to our democracy and indeed national cohesion and development.

Finally the party calls on its members across the country, especially in
Taraba state to remain undaunted as the appellate courts will restore
its well-deserved victory.