Further to our statement on Thursday last week, in which we alerted Nigerians to the fact that we are being frustrated with buck passing between officials of the Court of Appeal in Ado-Ekiti and Akure in our bid to obtain the Certified True Copies of the judgement of the Court delivered on the appeal filed by PDP and Eyitayo Jegede, SAN against Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, we wish to state once again that we are yet to receive the copies, five days after the judgement was delivered.
Ordinarily, the Certified True Copies should have been out on Wednesday or latest by Thursday.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ondo State Chapter, is astounded by the fact that in an open show of partisanship, in clear violation of the laws of the land, and in defiance of the Supreme Court before which we have expressed intention to pursue our case to a logical conclusion, Court of Appeal is willfully holding on to the said copies in an undisguised bid to frustrate our party.
Knowing that the Supreme Court has only 60 days from the date of the judgement of the Court of Appeal, to dispose of this matter, we are, as a law-abiding political party, again alerting Nigerians and the international community to the undisguised attempt to use delay tactics and confer undue advantage on APC and its governorship candidate.
We hereby place it on record that the obvious delay tactics calculated to subvert democracy will not work in this hard-won democracy.
Our party wishes to appeal to the President of the Court of Appeal to intervene, so as not to bring the Court and the entire judiciary to public ridicule through this inexplicable delay in making the judgement public.
We also appeal to the National Judicial Council (NJC) to prevail on the Court of Appeal Registrars to perform the responsibilities of that office and accede to our request without further delay, as failing to do so will constitute a criminal infringement on our democratic rights, a slap in the face of justice, and a crude attempt to truncate democracy using dirty tricks.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Kennedy Ikantu Peretei
State Publicity Secretary, Ondo PDP.
