Calabar-based lawyer Justice Osai Ahiakwo has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to organize a new election for the 27 vacant seats in the Rivers State House of Assembly. This call comes after lawmakers defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) over a week ago.
In an interview, Ahiakwo emphasized the need for the concerned party to prompt the electoral body to schedule a fresh election, adhering to constitutional provisions and electoral laws.
He praised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for intervening in resolving the Rivers crisis, using alternative dispute-resolution (ADR) mechanisms to persuade the involved parties to settle their differences.
Ahiakwo noted that the President’s proactive approach was crucial in easing the heightened political tension in Rivers State.
“Mr. President’s intervention wasn’t in any way contravening the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended),” he said.
Ahiakwo advised the gladiators to withdraw all pending cases in courts of law, saying once this is done, nothing can keep alive the contending issues before the court of law.
“Our legal system has been in existence even before the declaration of its independence as a nation. We have a very vast jurisprudence covering numerous aspects of our collective lives. Immediately the gladiators accept the withdrawal of the cases in courts, non-litigants not clothed with locus standi cannot cry more than the bereaved,” he said.
He stated that no court had delivered a final judgment in the pending cases before the Honourable Justices, maintaining that neither the Rivers State High Court nor the Federal High Court in Abuja has concluded the cases before them.
“To the best of my legal knowledge, there are no final pronouncements of the courts adjudicating on the legality or otherwise of the mirage of issues surrounding the political leadership tussle in Rivers State.
“What is perceived as the judgment of the court is an interlocutory order made by the court restraining either the defected lawmakers or the Executive Governor of the State equally restraining him from certain actions against the aggrieved lawmakers pending the final determination of the civil actions before the court,” he said.
