From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
The campaign structure of the former President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, Ikeoha Campaign Organisation yesterday said it has uncovered plots by Enemies of Enugu State to use the courts to stop the Senator’s governorship aspiration.
Director-General of the Campaign Organisation, Hon. Ogbonna Asogwa said the enemies of peace and democracy have already filed court processes at the Enugu State High Court, with the aim of using the Enugu State Judiciary to obtain an injunction barring the Ekweremadu from contesting the Enugu State gubernatorial election.
Asogwa said, “In the suit marked E/254/2022 with Ekweremadu as the Respondent, the Applicant, Chief Oforma Mbannaji from Nike (For himself and on behalf of other members of Enugu East Senatorial District, Enugu State) wants the former Deputy President of the Senate stopped based on a zoning agreement supposedly reached at an expanded Caucus meeting of the Enugu State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on 7th July 2013).”
He disclosed that the matter filed by the Applicant’s counsel, Dr. Peter Aneke, who also hails from Nike, would be heard by Justice Harold Eya on April 28.
In a statement yesterday, Asogwa said, “Sadly, this is yet another display of unmitigated and unconscionable desperation by a people hell-bent on ridiculing and desecrating virtually all critical institutions of democracy just to stop Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s aspiration and impose their lackeys and relations on the people of Enugu State.
“Their festival of lawlessness has seen the State House of Assembly, Local Government Council Chairmen, Town Unions, and lately the Enugu State Council of Traditional Rulers, and, in fact, almost every institution that our people hold in high reverence, needlessly dragged into and ridiculed by their reckless 2023 plots. Even institutions that have remained apolitical since ages have been both compelled and induced into issuing communiqués purportedly upholding an inexistent zoning arrangement, while those who resisted their plots have been threatened, detained in prison and or sanctioned.
“However, the current attempt to also drag the Enugu State and Nigerian judiciary into their plots is the height of it and one that the Enugu State Judiciary, the Nigerian Judiciary, the National Judicial Council, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria must never allow to happen.
“We therefore call the attention of the Chief Judge of Enugu State, the National Judicial Council, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria to this latest effort to bring this revered arm of government to disrepute.”
He noted that there was no such organ as an Expanded Caucus in the PDP Constitution and local government chairmen were not members of the State Caucus hence, “the purported meeting could not have been a Caucus meeting of our great party. In any case, it is not the business of the Caucus under the PDP Constitution to zone elective offices.
“More importantly, the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 expressly exclude the State High Courts from matters pertaining to State House of Assembly, governorship, National Assembly, and presidential elections.
“So, this is evidently an evil, meretricious, and baseless plot to use the judiciary to abort the popular will of the people by manipulating the course of democracy to obtain from that revered arm of government what they cannot obtain in a free and fair contest.”
He assured that no amount of intimidation, attacks, and detention of the supporters and political associates of Ekweremadu would stop an idea which time has come.