APGA wants date for suit against Obasanjo
From Jane Ezereonwu, Abuja
PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo's electoral victory is to receive a fresh legal challenge from the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).
The party has asked the Supreme Court to fix a date for another suit it filed questioning the validity of the Presidential polls held last year.
APGA's current move is coming barely a month after its appeal against the election was dismissed by the nation's apex court.
In a statement by its National Chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie, in Abuja yesterday, the party lamented that the Supreme Court had not deemed it fit to call up the case.
Describing the matter as an important national issue, the party stated that it had been denied justice.
Okorie said: "It is amazing that over 60 days after the mandatory 90 days for the reply of the appellant brief, INEC and the PDP have not deemed it necessary to file their reply brief and serve us as required by law."
He added: "As a key player in the current democratic dispensation, we wish to state without fear of contradiction that our party and candidates have become victims of the travesty of justice that is prevalent at various levels of our judicial system. We are now deeply worried that Nigeria is fast degenerating to a lawless society where anarchy and possible destabilisation of the entire society are looming large."
The APGA national chairman, also said that the treatment of a suit filed by the party with unseriousness had far-reaching implications for the polity and doubted the security of ordinary citizens.
Okorie appealed to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to call up the issue in court.
"I wish to appeal to your Lordship in the name of Almighty God to call up the APGA suit challenging the conduct of the 2003 general elections based on existing law for hearing in an open court."
The Supreme Court had on November 19, 2003 granted APGA leave to join a suit challenging the conduct of the 2003 general elections on the basis of the 2002 Electoral Act, which had been declared null and void by the Court of Appeal via a led judgment by Justice George Oguntunde.
