Review panel on Ekiti judgement to destabilise judiciary, polity – ACN

The Action Congress of Nigeria has said that the panel set up to review the Court of Appeal judgement on the Ekiti State governorship election can only achieve one aim: discredit the judiciary and destabilise the polity.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party “therefore called on all believers in the rule of law over the rule of the jungle to intervene to stop what has now become a circus show, simply because some honest and courageous judges dared to rule against the almighty Peoples Democratic Party.”

The review panel was set up by the National Judicial Commission on the basis of a petition by a former Governor of Ekiti State, Engineer Segun Oni.
This was after a panel of enquiry absolved the then President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, of any wrongdoing in the judgement that unseated Oni and gave the governorship seat to the incumbent, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
Oni, who was elected on the platform of the PDP, questioned the neutrality of Salami in the judgement that installed Fayemi of the ACN.
But ACN said in the statement by Mohammed: “The questions then are: What do those who instigated the set up of the review panel on the Ekiti judgement want
to achieve? Is there a precedent in this regard? Does it mean that once a litigant is dissatisfied with any judgement, even at the Supreme Court, he can get such a ruling to be reviewed once he has the ‘right’ connections? At the time the judgement was given, was the Court of Appeal not the final court in the governorship election petition? And what will the new panel say that the NJC has not said?”
The party said it is particularly worried that while Oni may be the face of this unprecedented assault on the judiciary, he is a mere puppet in a bigger circus show, and the puppeteers are the PDP and the Federal Government it controls.
The party added: “Last week, we had a reason to warn against what seems to be a calculated attempt to destroy the judiciary, an institution that has been built over the years, just because the PDP lost two governorship seats in Ekiti and Osun. We are compelled to issue the same warning now over the panel set up to review the Court of Appeal judgement in Ekiti.
“The fact that the PDP lost the governorship in two states where it was found to have stolen the people’s mandate is not a licence for the party and its powerful backers to bring down the roof and to seek to destroy the careers of forthright judges.
“Honestly, we at the ACN are not really bothered about Oni, who has been behaving like a small boy whose toy was taken from him (even such a boy is better than Oni because after he must have cried, he will move on). But our real concern are Oni’s masters, his puppeteers who are hell bent on using him to humiliate judges who would not do their bidding, and then destroy the judiciary in the process. This is why we are crying out now.”
The party said Nigeria is bigger than any individual or political party and must not be destroyed just so that an out-of-control but ‘well-connected’ party can keep a stolen mandate.