Ibori: 'Gani's Submission on Successor Faulty'
By Abimbola Akosile
An alleged submission by Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) on the issue of possible successor to Chief James Onanefe Ibori, should he be removed by Court for his involvement in an alleged conviction by a Bwari Upper Area Court in 1995, has been faulted.
Fawehinmi, counsel to Messrs. Goodnews Agbi and Tony Alabi, plaintiffs in the case and members of ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, had allegedly submitted that the man with highest number of votes in the last gubernatorial elections in the state should replace Ibori, if court holds that his government is illegal after identification in the just concluded trial.
Faulting Gani's submission in a statement, Barrister Patrick Agum, Deputy Legal Adviser of Derivation Front (DF), said the claimed that should Ibori's government be declared illegal, Speaker of Delta State House of Assembly be sworn in instead for an interim period not exceeding three months pending fresh elections.
In a 10-paragraph statement, Agum noted that "we understand that the submissions were made pursuant to briefings received from the plaintiffs in the matter. We have no cause to doubt the claims of the highly revered SAN. We conceed to the plaintiffs the rights to instruct their counsel to present before court whatever reliefs they deem appropriate in any situation."
"We reiterate here that our group are the main members of PDP and are not part of any arrangement with the purported PDP plaintiffs leading to submissions that the man with the highest number of votes should replace the PDP governor pursuant to section 21(5) of the Electoral Act if said governor is identified as the 1995 felon," he stated.
To Agum, "position of the law is that in event of court identifying the Bwari felon as the present Governor of Delta State, an infringement of section 182 1(E) of 1999 Constitution would have occurred, which would be a nullity of the entire process as provided for in section 136(1) of the 2002 Electoral Act."
He claimed that the clarification had become necessary to emphasise the fact that what was agreed with the group as fresh claims to be presented before the High Court is as contained in the statement of claim filed and that the impression should not be created that all PDP members presently identified with the matter are Alliance of Democracy (AD) members in PDP garb.
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