The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expressed full support to its gubernatorial candidate, Pastor Tonye Cole, on his decision to appeal the decision of the Governorship Elections Tribunal which affirmed the election of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and Governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara, at the 2023 Governorship election in the state.
Cole on Tuesday announced that he had filed an application before the Court of Appeal in Abuja, challenging the Tribunal’s ruling which dismissed his petition against the outcome of the March 18 poll.
In a letter addressed to the Deputy Chief Registrar, Court of Appeal, Abuja Division and signed by Umar Abubakar, on Tuesday, it was disclosed that the appeal was registered in suit number CA/ABJ/EP/GOV/RV/121/2023.
The letter further stated “Respectfully, I hereby forward 10 hard copies of Record of Appeal for volumes 1-4 each, including Four (4) unbounded, Two (2) Soft/Scanned copies in hard disk (CD), for the use of their Lordships before the Court of Appeal”.
Tonye Cole, in the letter which was titled “Transmission of record of Appeal in EPT/RV/GOV/10/2023:Cole Tonye Cole q Vs. INEC & 2 ors”, explained that all parties have been duly served with both the Notice of Appeal and the Record.
“Respectfully, I hereby forward 10 hard copies of Record of Appeal for volumes 1 -4 each, including Four (4) unbounded, Two (2) Soft/Scanned copies in hard disk (CD), for the use of their Lordships before the Court of Appeal”, the letter further stated.
In a swift reaction in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, the e Publicity Secretary of the party, Darlington Nwauju, declared the support of the party to Cole and expressed the hope that the Court of Appeal would be able to reverse the tribunal’s judgement in favour of the party’s candidates.
He said: “I can authoritatively confirm to the media today, October 24, 2023, that our governorship candidate, Tonye Patrick Cole has entered an Appeal against the ruling of the Governorship/National Assembly“We do pray and hope that the Court of Appeal and the Judiciary will be able to serve justice to the people of Rivers State and to the memories of all those who were killed for their political beliefs, for following and supporting the APC in Rivers State.
“We pray we will get justice and as a law-abiding political party, we will always abide by the decisions of the court. However, we want to draw attention and remind Nigerians of the fact that some of the grounds for dismissing the petition at court of first instance, are unacceptable and do not make sense even to the common man.
“Even with the fact that in Section 133 of the Electoral Act Sub 1, clearly given right to candidates of election to challenge the outcome of election and have an independent right different from that of political parties. So the Tribunal told Nigerians that Arch. Cole does not have the right to challenge the outcome of the Governorship election in Rivers State which is contrary to what the Electoral Act 2022 as amended.
“That Tribunal decision is also contrary to the ruling of the Supreme Court in a case brought before it by Buhari against Obasanjo in suit number SC/194/2003, which clearly define the powers of a candidate of a political party and also gives equal power to both the political party and candidates to challenge the decision of the court on an election.
“So, we hope the Court of Appeal will be able to reverse the ugly trend of trying to adjudicate on the decision of a higher court, especially the Supreme Court.”
. TheWitness
