Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State praised the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal’s decision for confirming his victory in the election on March 18 and asserting that the judiciary had spoken with one voice.
The three-member panel, in its judgment delivered on Friday, unanimously held that the petitioner failed in its petition because it lacked merit.
On Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, Mutfwang appeared as a guest and criticized the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s petition challenging his election as petty and a waste of time and effort. He thought it was appropriate that the court referred to them as intrusive meddlesome parties.
He said, “You would recall that before, some of my state and National Assembly members were thrown out supposedly for lack of structure by the PDP.
“Panel 1 had already upheld the election of the Senate minority leader and other members of the National Assembly because ab initio, to anybody who is genuine, to anybody who is fair, anybody who is honest, he knows that leg of the petition by the APC and any other party for that matter is not only mischievous, it is simply a waste of time and energy because they know the truth.
“I want to assure you that the cases are there for anybody to see and what the petitioners have done is what the tribunal has rightly called in line with precedent that they were nothing but meddlesome interlopers and I’m glad that today the judiciary has spoken with a strong voice.”
Speaking on the judgment sacking some PDP lawmakers in the state due to lack of structure in the party, Governor Mutfwang said that the judges will have to answer as the matter goes for appeal.
He noted that the Supreme Court had laid a precedent that on issues bordering on pre-election matters on the nomination of candidates, another party cannot pick into what happened in an opposing party.
Governor Mutfwang is confident that the decision of the panel sacking the PDP lawmakers would be overturned by the higher courts as he maintained that the petition is “abuse of court process and rape on precedent.”