By Okoro Chinedum Benedict
On Monday November 21, 2022, Hon. Justice M. A Madugu of the FCT High Court 40 Bwari issued a Bench Warrant on Chief Edozie Njoku (National Chairman of APGA) and Chukwuemeka Nwoga (National Youth Leader of APGA) for their absence in Court in Charge No: CR/12/2022.
It is instructive to note that the duo were not PROPERLLY served the Court processes in accordance with the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Let me make it abundantly clear that there is the temptation for Nigerians to look down on Chief Edozie Njoku’s ordeal and the tidal events in APGA, either as a tribal/regional or internal political affairs of the APGA.
Unfortunately, what many Nigerians do not know is that the Soludo’s plot with INEC to subvert the Supreme Court Judgment, thereby denying the authentic leadership of APGA to field candidates for the coming election amounts to deliberate exclusion of the Party from the 2023 General Election. This is a constitutional breach which has the potentials to ship wreck or blow sky high our excitement about the coming elections.
Any attempt to railroad Nigerians into going into the 2023 General Elections with APGA candidates fielded by Chief Victor Oye is trap that will eventually upturn the election.
Therefore, the last onslaught towards destabilizing 2023 General Elections is Gov. Soludo’s dangerous plot to use Bench Warrant to ensure Chief Edozie Njoku is remanded in prison till 2023 elections are over.
These subversive schemes must be put to a stop. All the contentions and disputations concerning the amended Supreme Court Judgment of May 9, 2022 have been put to rest by Hon. Justice Mary Peter Odili’s clarification letter of November 7, 2022.
On 14/10/2021, the Supreme Court Justices led by Hon. Justice Mary Odili delivered a judgment on APGA leadership. But in the process, there was a slip. They mistakenly put in Victor Oye’s name where Chief Edozie Njoku’s name ought to have been.
On May 6, 2022, the attention of the members of the Panel was called to this erroneous misplacement of Chief Victor Oye’s name with that of Chief Edozie Njoku on Page 13 of the Judgment.
On May 9, 2022, following the Supreme Court’s Order 8 Rule 16, the Panelists corrected the Judgment thereby returning Chief Edozie Njoku’s name in its appropriate place.
On July 15, 2022, the Supreme Court gave us the CTCs of the amended judgment and the Enrolment Order. They also served INEC on the same July 15, 2022.
In line with the law establishing the Commission, INEC was meant to recognize Chief Edozie Njoku based on the fact that it recognized Chief Jude Okeke whom the Jigawa High Court declared the Acting National Chairman of APGA upon the purported suspension of Chief Edozie Njoku on the same matter.
Recall that Chief Okeke’s recognition by INEC earned Hon. Chuma Umeoji his place as the APGA Governorship candidate during the Anambra Governorship Election in 2021.
Ultimately, the Commission deliberately put Chief Edozie Njoku’s recognition on suspended animation for some unexplainable reasons.
While INEC was still ambivalent over the Supreme Court Judgment, Chief Victor Oye wrote a petition to the Nigerian Police alleging that the CTCs of the Supreme Court Judgment and Enrolment Order was forged.
Oye’s audacity to label a Supreme Court Judgment as a fraudulent document was emboldened by the unauthorized letter from Mrs Hajo Sarki Bello, (Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court) to INEC and Police claiming that the CTCs of the Judgment and Enrollment Order were forged.
On September 1, 2022, Dr. Festus Akande (Direct of Media and Press of the Supreme Court) also made a Press Conference and labeled the CTCs which were duly applied for through the administrative channels of the Supreme Court and properly signed by Mr. Olugbenga Owodolu as forged documents.
Mr. Mohammed A. Dikko who is the Supreme Court Director of Litigation is part of the affront against the Supreme Court Judgment.
This would be the first time that members of staff of the Supreme Court would stroll into the Sanctity of the Realms of the Apex Court and assume interpretation of a Supreme Court Judgment; when the Justices of the Supreme Court are alive and breathing.
The audacity of this fraud is coordinated by very daring Police Officers, some members of the Supreme Court and some INEC staff.
It is the boldness of the aforementioned quasi cartel that gave Chief Victor Oye the impetus to petition the IGP that the Supreme Court Judgment indeed doctored.
Seeing the depth of the conspiracy, we wrote a letter to the Police and raised the alarm that CSP Ezekiel Rimamsomte, the investigator was too comprised, biased and unprofessional in the discharge of his duties.
On October 13, 2022, the Police reassigned the matter to DCP Simon Lough, SAN to handle.
Worrisomely, despite the details contained in Hon. Justice Ukaego Peter Mary Odili’s clarification letter, Chief Victor Oye and CSP Ezekiel Rimamsomte insist that the letter was also forged. Yet, they prefer to cite Mrs Hajo Sarki Bello’s (Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court) letter to the one written by the lead Justice of the Panel. This is absurd.
Authoritatively, this entire melodrama has one purpose which is to derail the 2023 General Elections.
Perhaps, it is time for the Supreme Court to issue an official statement that will lay this debacle to rest, permanently.
Indeed, it is expected that the Apex Court would also wield its big stick on Gov. Soludo, Chief Victor Oye and other collaborators in this sordid and uncivilized plot.
Okoro Chinedum Benedict
National Administrative Secretary,
APGA
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