Osun APC Accuses PDP Of Misinforming Nigerians On Court Pronouncement

The Osun State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) has challenged the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state to produce a Certified True Copy (CTC) of the pronouncement of the Federal Court of Appeal in Akure that purportedly nullified the election of state and federal legislators in the state yesterday.

The APC asked Nigerians to ignore the claims that the elections of legislators conducted by the state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ambassador Rufus Akeju have been declared invalid until the PDP produces the CTC.

The party, in a statement by its Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy, Barrister Kunle Oyatomi, said: “There’s no such declaration by any court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

It would be recalled that the PDP had called on Senate President David Mark to disallow Senators from the state to contribute to debates on the floor of the Senate because their elections, which was allegedly conducted by Akeju, were nullified by an Akure Court of Appeal.

But the APC accused the PDP of feeding the public with misinformation and blatant lies.

The APC noted that the PDP had challenged the competence of Akeju to conduct the elections but later stopped any further action on the substantive matter until the determination of the appeal in Akure.

It said: “Our authentic in formation is that the court declared that the process of filing the appeal by INEC was defective, hence incompetent and was as a result struck out.

“The Court of Appeal neither made pronouncements on the substantive suit which is not before the court of Appeal but still pending in Osogbo nor did it declare the elections of 2011 ‘null and void’ as the PDP is misleading Nigerians.

“What Akure Court did was to strike out a defective notice which can still be refiled. The substantive case in which the PDP is seeking a Court’s (not the Electoral Tribunal) pronouncement that the legislative elections of 2011 were allegedly null and void, has been withdrawn at the Federal High Court Osogbo.

“So an appeal court cannot make a pronouncement on a matter that has not even been heard or argued by the parties involved, at the High Court”.