January 23, (THEWILL) – The Plateau State Police Command has deployed operatives to the Old Government House, the temporary venue of the Plateau House of Assembly.
THEWILL reports that the development may not be unconnected to the decision of 16 former lawmakers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to resume sitting, despite the nullification of their election by the Court of Appeal, Abuja.
Addressing newsmen in Jos on Monday, the sacked PDP lawmakers, through the former Majority Leader, Ishaku Maren, said the Supreme Court judgement, which affirmed Governor Caleb Mutfwang as the duly elected Governor of the State should also be applicable to the state lawmakers that were sacked by the appellate court.
The appellate court had sacked the sixteen PDP lawmakers for lack of structure while declaring the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) as duly elected lawmakers in the March 18th House of Assembly election in Plateau State.
Although the APC and LP lawmakers are yet to be inaugurated since the House has been on recess since last December, they described the threat by the sacked PDP members to resume plenary session as insensitive to the rule of law and invitation to anarchy.
Meanwhile, ahead of the resumption of plenary on Tuesday, armed policemen have been deployed to the temporary Chamber of the Old Government House to prevent any potential disruption of sitting.
For the record, the Supreme Court had on January 12, in its judgment that affirmed the election of Caleb Mutfwang as duly elected governor, held that the issue of the primary election that produced candidates in an election was outside the jurisdiction of the lower court. It pointed out that the validity of nomination and sponsorship is not a valid ground to void an election.
In its lead judgement delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the apex court held that there was an actual structure of the PDP in Plateau State and declared the primary election that produced Mutfwang and the other PDP lawmakers as valid.
On his part, Presiding Justice, John Okoro lamented the wrongful judgments of the Court of Appeal that sacked the Plateau PDP Lawmakers.
In her submission, Justice Helen Ogunwumiju berated the appellate court for going into the issue of nomination and sponsorship despite several decisions of the apex court to the effect that another political party cannot challenge the primary election of another.
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