Nnamdi Felix / Abuja

Alhaji Bamanga Tukur: denies suit to remove Mu’azu

Former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur on Wednesday denied insinuations that he was behind the legal moves to remove his successor, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu to enable him return to the office from which he was forced to resign recently.

Tukur resigned after much pressure from chieftains of the party in the wake of the defection of five aggrieved governors to the All Progressives Congress, APC

Speaking through his lawyer, Mr. Adamson Adeboro, Tukur told Judiciary Correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday, that he was joined as a defendant alongside Mu’azu, the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the matter by the plaintiff, Aliyu Gubrin, and that his lawyer only filed a counter-claim on his behalf.

According to Mr. Adamson, “My client, Bamanga Tukur was not the plaintiff in the suit filed to oust Adamu Mu’azu. As a matter of fact, he was joined as 2nd defendant in the suit”.

Justice Evoh Chukwu had last Tuesday dismissed the suit seeking to oust Mu’azu as the national chairman of the PDP on the ground that the litigant does not have locus standi to institute the action.

The plaintiff, Mr. Aliyu Gubrin, has however filed an appeal against the judgment at the Court of Appeal but no date has been fixed for the hearing of the appeal by the appellate court.

In the appeal, Gubrin is urging the court to set aside the judgement of the lower court and rule that Mu’azu’s appointment as the national chairman of the party was illegal and also insists that Justice Chukwu erred in his decision when he held that he lacks the locus standi to institute the action.

He faulted the trial court’s position on the constitutionality of Tukur’s resignation noting that the court erred when it held that the PDP complied with the provision of the party’s constitution without making a pronouncement on whether the 30 days notice required under Section 47(5) of the party’s constitution is discretionary which, according to him, led the court in reaching wrong conclusions thereby occasioning miscarriage of Justice.

He further stated that the court was wrong in its judgement when it held that the appointment of Mu’azu complied with the PDP Constitution but failed to consider the provision of section 85(3) of the Elctoral Act and Section 223(1) of the Nigerian Constitution which expressly provided for an election of political party chairman rather than appointment as in the case of Mu’azu.