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Pre-election: Ex-presidential aspirant, Cosmos Ndukwe reacts to supreme court’s ruling on PDP rotatory policy.
Ex-presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the just-concluded 2022 presidential primary election conducted by the leadership of the opposition party, Rt Hon Cosmos Chukwudi Ndukwe, has reacted to the recent ruling of the supreme court which struck out his suit asking the apex court to invoke its section to compel the main opposition party in Nigeria to adhere to her rotatory arrangements by ceding her ticket to the southeast.
Our correspondent revealed on Friday, that Supreme Court struck out a suit instituted against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to enforce the zoning and rotatory policy of the party in the 2023 Presidential election filed ex–presidential aspirant, Hon Cosmos Ndukwe from Abia state.
Justice Adamu Jauro-led panel of the apex court had in an unanimous judgement struck out the suit on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction to entertain it.
A presidential aspirant of PDP and former Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Cosmos Ndukwe instituted the suit against his party praying for an order to compel it to uphold the zoning and rotatory policy of the party.
He specifically sought an order of the court to compel PDP to zone the nomination of its presidential candidate to the South East geo-political zone of the country.
But while reacting to the apex court’s judgement during a telephone interview with DAILY POST on Friday night, Hon Cosmos Ndukwe who was also the Chief of Staff to former Abia Governor and now, Representative of Abia central senatorial district of Abia State, Theodore Ahamefule Orji said the lawsuit which sought the supreme court order to compel the main opposition PDP to zone its presidential ticket to the southeast based on rotation agreements between the north and south, was shrouded on justice, equity and fairness.
He regretted that southeast region is continually being marginalized in current Nigeria’s democratic settings, and further insisted that its turn of the southern Nigeria, specifically the southeast of Igbo extraction, to produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor in the coming 2023 general elections as equity demanded.
Ndukwe said that the former ruling party has negated its democratic principle and provisions of the constitution of the land on which PDP was founded, by zoning her presidential seat ticket to north, and further maintained that other geopolitical zone in Nigeria federation had taken the shot at the nation’s highest seat of power (Presidency), excluding the southeast.
He faulted the main opposition PDP could violate its own laws by failing to adhere to the provisions of the law as enacted, which it harped on rotating the office of the President of Nigeria among the geopolitical zones in the country which is shrouded on justice, equity and fairness, and propagated to every section of the country a sense of belongings especially in her political leadership.
His words: “it will remain In the annals of history, and on record in supreme court that one man stood up on his ground to say no to the rascality of the party to disobey the provision of the PDP constitution.
“Well the matter today was just based on technical aspect of it. The originating summons was not properly trashed by the lower court and appellate court. It is only one leg of the appellate matter that came to the supreme court, and the supreme court said they lacked the jurisdiction to hear the originating summons. And that the originating summons did not pass the appellate court then to the supreme court.
“And what passed through the appellate court was the ruling given by court, and come as accelerated hearing, which PDP took to appeal, and from the appellate court, to the supreme court, bringing up the originating summons from the lower court for want of time, so that the supreme court will invoke their section 22 of their act, to listen to that matter based on want of time. Because the supreme court said their decision was based on mere technicalities.
“That’s exactly what happened, and was based on those technical aspect of filing processes, supreme court struck out the matter. Well, the supreme court is the final court of the land. And whatever decision, whatever judgement coming out from the supreme court, all of us will abide by it. Earlier, PDP try to manoeuvre and doffed off of mentioning or going into the merit of the originating summons based on zoning. So, they have their reasons.
Continuing, Ndukwe said, “It does appear that PDP is zoning to the north, by the north, and sidelining the south in its entirety. I, for once took the pains of going into the presidential with difficulty. I taught that since we have zoned the national working committee we have a northener as party national chairman, by the section of that constitution, it should come the south, and southeast precisely. That was my place.
“You look at the whole things now, even if we ended up having the national chairman removed, the southeast is totally out of the picture. In an election like this, we talk about justice, we talk about fairness and equity. All these were being captured in PDP constitution of Nigeria even in the provisions, that there must Justice. You then ask yourself, where are the justice? where are the fairness? Where are the equity”.
