Supreme Court fixes date for Taraba PDP guber tussle

A date for the Supreme Court to laid to rest the controversies surrounding the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship tussle for Taraba State has been set aside.

The wrangling which is between an aggrieved guber aspirant, Professor Jerome Nyameh and the party’s governorship flag bearer, Kefas Agbu, as well as the Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), it was learnt will be resolved on the 3rd of February 2023.

The case which was slated for hearing, Monday, at the Apex court led to the withdrawal of an appeal earlier filed by the former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Joseph Albasu, seeking to be joined in the appeal filed by Nyameh.

The lawyer to the former speaker reportedly withdrew his appeal as an interested party and the PDP did same.

Recall that the Appellate court sitting in Yola, Adamawa state, had earlier dismissed both Nyameh’s cases on the grounds of lack of merits.

Not comfortable with the appellate court’s decision, Nyameh, who believed that his case had merit, immediately proceeded to the Apex court, calling for the disqualification of the party’s governorship.

Two justices at the appellate court gave a majority judgement, affirming Agbu the candidate of PDP.

The judges, in their ruling, upheld the decision of the Federal High Court in Jalingo that it was a party affair and that the appeal court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it, ruling that Nyameh’s appeal lacked merit.

One of the judges, however, disagreed with the two other judges, ruling that Nyameh’s appeal had merit.

The judge who did not only order for fresh primaries, in his ruling, also ordered that Agbu be excluded from participating in the fresh primaries.

Kicking against the majority judgement, Nyameh challenged the ruling at the court, relying on the minority judgement of the appellate court which held that “Agbu and PDP clearly violated their constitution and guidelines.”

At the time of filing this report, the chieftains of the party and the supporters of the two major actors declined to speak on the new development saying, “we will only comment after the ruling which has been slated for the 3rd of February this year.”