The All Progressives Congress (APC) was ridiculed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State yesterday for its abrupt withdrawal of its lawsuit opposing the Executive Orders 21 and 22 that Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike just signed.
According to Darlington Nwauju, the state APC’s spokesperson, the party chose to drop the lawsuit from the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt for “strategic considerations.”
However, in response to the APC’s withdrawal of what it called a “clueless suit,” the PDP’s Consolidation for New Rivers Vision Campaign Council praised the APC in a statement it released in Port Harcourt yesterday.
In the statement signed by the chairman of Publicity and Communications Committee of the PDP Campaign Council, Hon. Ogbonna Nwuke, the ruling party said the APC’s resolve to withdraw the matter was borne out of the understanding that the matter brought before Justice Emmanuel Obile was ‘frivolous, defective and baseless’.
The statement reads in part: “We want to congratulate the APC for doing what is right by withdrawing a frivolous and inconsequential suit brought against Orders 21 and 22.
“For once, the APC has told the Rivers people the truth. The truth is that it deliberately attempted to misled public opinion by going to court.
“As we know now, there was never any substance in the suit. What we cannot comprehend is why the APC is trying to say it withdrew for strategic reasons. What is strategic in telling lies?
“Haven withdrawn the suit, the APC cannot in all honesty claim that the executive orders are still illegal. If the executive orders and the position taken by the Rivers State House of Assembly are illegal, why did it withdraw from court?
“Accordingly, the claim that the APC withdrew for strategic reasons is neither here nor there.
“The only strategic reason that we know which has led the APC to withdraw the suit, is the realization that there is no way it could win a matter that is deceitful, frivolous, defective and baseless.”