By Adadareporters
Dr Yunusa Tanko, a chieftain of the Labour Party, has expressed doubts at what he called ‘contradicting verdicts of the President Election Petition Tribunal and Assembly tribunals’, especially those that have sacked many LP lawmakers at state and National assemblies.
According to Tanko, who spoke during an interview on News Central TV’s ‘The Conversation’ on Wednesday, some of the issues being used to sack LP lawmakers were tagged pre-election matters by the PEPT. PEPT had ruled against LP’s presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, but held that Obi’s nomination remained valid because it was internal with Labour Party.
Tanko, who is the official spokesman for the Obi-Datti Media Office, said, “It is quite unfortunate that some of the issues that we took to the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal were centred around the issues of election matters that are substantial at the moment.
“It is amazing that some of the positions taken on Labour Party’s case in the court indicated that there are issues that learned judges considered as pre-election matters; for example, the issue of double nomination of the APC vice presidential candidate.
“But interestingly, these are the same cases that are now being used to sack some of our members from their positions as legislators in both the state and federal levels.They are using the same pre-election matters as a case study.
“The same LP case that was dismissed by the court is now being used to sack our candidates. So, one wonders, where is the contradicting happening?
“If you as a court can decide that that case is a pre-election matter, then why are you adjudicating on the same issue when you dismissed our case at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal?”
