In a development that may cause tension in the state, the 16 sacked Plateau lawmakers have announced that they are resuming to the plenary on Tuesday.
DAILY GIST reports that APC had gained control of the Plateau house of assembly following a ruling of the appeal court in Abuja that sacked all 16 PDP lawmakers in the state.
The court held that the PDP structure in Plateau collapsed since 2020, adding that the party cannot claim to have a structure to sponsor any candidate to contest an election.
Abang Okon, the lead justice, held that all votes scored by the PDP candidate were wasted and therefore a nullity.
But speaking on Monday, the sacked legislators said they are taking leverage from the Supreme Court judgment, which overturned the judgment of the lower court and reinstated Governor Caleb Mutfwang as the duly elected governor of the state.
Addressing Journalists in Jos on Monday, the PDP members warned their All Progressives Congress (APC) counterparts not to go near the House of Assembly on Tuesday because the Supreme Court by its pronouncement had invalidated the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which sacked them.
The spokesman of the 16 members, Ishaku Maren, said the Supreme Court had revalidated their election, which was wrongly taken away from them by the lower court.
Maren, who was flanked by the other 15 members, said that as law abiding citizens, they are ready to resume work to represent the people that duly elected them.
He said, “As you can see the 16 PDP members of the Plateau State House of Assembly all here to address the press regarding our resumption to duty tomorrow because our recess will be ending today ( Monday ), and by tomorrow,( Tuesday)we are resuming to walk in earnest and we are confident to address the press by informing the general public that my members that is PDP family members in the State Assembly are in high spirits and are willing and ready to go back and continue with our constitutional duty willingly given to us by the electorates. So we are all ready for the resumption of work tomorrow.
They added that “You might be aware that while were on recess, there were two Judgments that were passed regarding the status of state House of Assembly and Plateau State as a whole. “
The first one was that given by the Court of Appeal, where they said that one cannot put something on nothing; that PDP in Plateau state has no structure and it was on that premise to that they sacked all the 16 PDP members and lo and behold as we were on recess a superior court gave its own verdict regarding the same issue and in the judgment of the Supreme Court they said that the judgment that was brought before the Court of Appeal in its entirety was fraudulent and because of that the Court of Appeal lacked even the jurisdiction to entertain the entire matter.
“By that it shows that we are also referring to the same judgment that one cannot build something on nothing”
They advised the governor not to interfere with their resumption because they’re going to resist all pressure.
“The Court of Appeal members are deceiving themselves that they are coming to the house tomorrow to resume work but I’m confident to tell you that we are a product of democracy.
“We are validly elected by the majority of votes that were cast in our various respective constituencies and our constituents are willing and ready to accompany us as citizens tomorrow to the House of Assembly because they voted for us and they are not ready to compromise that and that is why they are seeing us to the state assembly tomorrow.” The spokesman of the Lawmakers added
It was gathered that the APC lawmkers have not taken oath of office since Court of Appeal gave them the Seats as they were waiting for the resumption of the House from Recess.
