The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Gabriel Dawang, to swear in the 16 lawmakers on the party’s platform without further delay or face legal consequences.
Addressing journalists on Tuesday at the end of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) meeting in Abuja, its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, said failure to swear in the lawmakers would attract legal sanctions.
Recall that the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, had, in November 2023, sacked all the 16 members of the state House of Assembly elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the ground that the party had no structure to nominate them as candidates and thereafter declared candidates of the APC in the election as winners.
But the speaker had said he would not recognise the 16 lawmakers who were declared winners of the election in their various constituencies until he gets a judicial interpretation following the judgment of the Supreme Court, which affirmed Caleb Mutfwang as the governor of Plateau State, a case the PDP lawmakers argued meant their sack had also been set aside.
Morka said, “The NWC denounced the failure or refusal of the speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly to swear in 16 APC House members adjudged by the Court of Appeal as the duly elected members of the Plateau State House of Assembly.
“The intransigence of the speaker and the governor of the state in this matter is wrong, undemocratic and violently contemptuous of the authority of the Court of Appeal, the highest court for the determination of election petition matters as it concerns the House of Assembly.
In another development, the APC also announced plans to flag off the update of voters registers nationally, beginning with Niger State, “Then flag off in one state in each of the other geopolitical zones.”
Morka said the NWC also adopted in its entirety the report of the reconciliation and intervention delegation to the United Kingdom’s APC Diaspora Chapter.
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