A Taraba based legal practitioner and head of B.M Legal Consult, Barr E.T. Anderifun said, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha representing Taraba South Senatorial district was decleared authentic 2023 APC governoship candidate based on merit of his case.
The lawmaker and a business tycoon, David Sabo Kente have been locked up in the APC governorship ticket legal crisis since May, 2023 after APC primaries until Bwacha was affirmed by the Supreme Court.
While speaking with DAILY POST on the development amid rumours that the APC does not have governoship candidate ahead of March 18, 2023 Governorship and State House of Assembly elections, the legal practitioner clarified that the case moved from High Court to the Supreme Court and it has been settled.
He explained: “In the case filed before the Federal High Court, Jalingo by David Sabo Kente (DSK) against Senator Emmanuel Bwacha (SEB) & others, that Court agreed with DSK that there was no valid primary election conducted by the APC. The Court ordered that the APC should conduct a fresh primary election within 14 days from the date of that judgement.
“SEB and others appealed against that decision of the Federal High Court, Jalingo to the Court of Appeal and also asked that the orders of the Federal High Court be stayed pending the outcome of the appeal.
“Now, stay of execution of order of Court simply means the postponement, halting or suspension of judgement of a Court pending the final result of an appeal. The order that was halted or suspended could be carried out if at the end the appeal fails.
“In sum, that matter went up to the last bus-stop of appeals, the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the Federal High Court Jalingo. However, the apex Court did not make any pronouncement in respect of the order for fresh primary election that was made by the Federal High Court. The inescapable implication is that that Order remained alive and kicking, and the APC was at liberty to swim within the compass of its universe.
“In law, unless and until an Order of Court is set aside either by that same Court or by a Higher Court, it remains valid, subsisting and binding.
“In this case, the matter having gone the same way the Federal High Court Jalingo had first decided, the APC chose to fall back on the living Order for fresh primary and fully utilized same by conducting a fresh primary election where SEB emerged as the winner and his name was duly submitted to the INEC.
“That exercise having been carried out by the APC within the comfortable embrace of that subsisting Order of the Federal High Court Jalingo, and the validity or otherwise of the said Order having not been challenged nor same set aside, it is rather otiose for anyone to argue that the name of SEB was not submitted to the INEC within the time allowed by the Electoral Act, 2022.
“It is in the light and life of the foregoing that the Federal High Court has, in its recent decision of 8/3/2023, ordered the INEC to restore back to its portal the name of SEB as the candidate of the APC in the forthcoming Governorship election in Taraba State.
“It is therefore sheer distracting tactics being employed by those who have failed this State since its creation and have nothing to tell the people again, and whose only slippery hope is to poison the minds of the people, infuse fears into them and scare them with the unholy strategy that the APC does not have a candidate in the forthcoming election and that any vote given to SEB amounts to pouring water inside a basket!
“It is a fact that Taraba State, though not the last to be created in Nigeria, is one of the most underdeveloped States in the country despite its huge potentials. And, the culprits of this moral criminality are the same people/party whom, rather than tell Tarabans how they intend to clear the mess they have created, are busy trying to discredit the candidature of SEB simply because the stench oozing from their “shinkafa and maggi” campaign, which is their only evidence of development, would not let them engage on issues based campaign.”
