Members of Ogun PDP during the protest

Adejoke Adeleye, Abeokuta

Some members of the Ogun State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP on Sunday embarked on peaceful protest in Abeokuta against last week’s Supreme Court judgement which resulted in the sack of a member of the party, Emeka Ihedioha, as the governor of Imo State.

The court had declared Sen. Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the March 9 Imo gubernatorial election.

Hon Sikirulai Ogundele, a factional Chairman of Ogun PDP led the protest with members of the party carrying different placards.

They described the judgement as ‘cruel’, ‘unethical’ and ‘undemocratic’ in the various placards they carried during the protest.

Speaking to journalists, Ogundele called on the Federal Government to set up a monitoring mechanism for judgments delivered by the Supreme Court.

He described the judgment of the apex court on the Imo governorship election as misleading and a miscarriage of justice.

He noted that the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal have affirmed the election of Emeka Ihedioha before what he described as ‘disappointment’ in the Supreme Court.

“We saw it (the judgment) to be a threat to the nascent democracy of this country. And we are reacting and unequivocally condemning that judgment that it is unacceptable. The Federal Government should set up a judicial panel to look into that case of Imo State and give us the correct judgment.

“How can somebody that placed fourth will now become first. How can we have a situation in which the number of accredited people were more than the votes allocated to the APC ?

“So many things have come up, but it is just quite unfortunate that the elders in our judicial systems are turning things upside down. Our demand is that they should review that judgment and probably reverse it through another judicial panel.

“We don’t have confidence in the leadership of CJN Mohammed Tanko, because we believe he is  biased, compromised and I don’t want to hide words, the judicial system of this country is turning to something else.

“It is a complete threat to this nascent democracy and because if things are going this way, we cannot get correct judgment from our courts again, and it is bad.

“We are here to condemn that judgment unequivocally, we are here to appeal before the federal government of Nigeria to go back or to direct the judicial system to review that judgment and correct it and come up with the real judgment.

“And again, we are reacting to what happened in Imo State, now that we still have four states or more to be decided, we still have Benue, Sokoto, Kano, and Bauchi.

“We are appealing to FG to let justice prevail, to let democracy that is just growing in Nigeria to thrive, that is our grouse, and our prayers. We look forward to having positive response from the FG.”