Senate minority leader Simon Mwadkwon has alleged that the justices of the annulment of his election at the appeal court was influenced by religion, ethnic and political factors.
Speaking on Thursday while featuring on the television programme “Morning Show” on Arise Television, he maintained that his election shouldn’t have been annulled.
The Abuja division of the Court of Appeal, had on Sunday, nullified Mwadkwon’s victory while delivering judgement in the Plateau North senatorial election dispute filed by Chris Giwa of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Gyang Zi of the Labour Party (LP).
The court ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a fresh election for all parties within 90 days.
However, reacting to the judgement during the television programme, Mwadkwon alleged that the court was influenced by “ethnic and religious factors and monitory inducement”.
“The justices are being influenced by a lot of factors, which include ethnic and religious factors and monitory inducement.
“So it is just possible that they were just influenced by party allegiance or by whatever influence to give this judgment,” he said.
He argued that, “In the first place, my election shouldn’t have been annuled and therefore, I am of the feeling that let them have a leeway for everybody go and contest election, they would have satisfied some interest groups …
“I am not trying to demean the integrity of the court, but I am just telling you what is reality in this country.
“It is a reality that is happening in this country because if you look at it clearly, very, very clear, the law is explicit about this thing- about what the appeal court should do”, he said.
According to him, “The law is explicit about it, they ( justices) are supposed to entertain what happened on election day.
“They are not supposed to go back to pre- election matter. Let me ask you, why do you think the went back to pre-election matter when the law is very clear that they are supposed to look at what happened on election day…
“There is a precedence that they set, they had done that in such judgments in the supreme court, and then look at what happened in my own case.
‘Twenty-four hours after a judgment had been given in a similar matter, exactly with the same conditions, and the next day, my judgment came and it was completely different!
“I want to believe that certain factors must have influenced this judgment.
“The judgment did not say explicitly that I will not contest in the rerun because the concluding part of the judgment said all the political parties there in, shall participate in the rerun.
“So I don’t want to believe that the judgment explicitly said I will not contest… the judgment did not mention anywhere that PDP will not participate.”
