Lana: Judiciary Culpable in Attempt to Destroy PDP 

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

A member of the Oyo State Advisory Council, Mr Michael Lana, Wednesday raised an alarm that the judiciary is culpable in the attempt by some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to destroy the party.

Lana while apparently reacting to a statement on Tuesday by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State during a media chat that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, said he will hold the PDP down in 2027 for President Bola Tinubu, lamented that such a statement by a member of the PDP raised a lot of issues concerning the judiciary.

According to the former Oyo State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, it is important to ask whether when the minister made such a boast, he had it in mind to use the judiciary to get the job done or he already has a stranglehold on the judiciary that he was so sure the third arm of government would do his bidding.

Lana, in a statement by his Media Office, noted that the questions are pertinent because it is very clear that the only weapon the minister could and can use is the courts,  adding that if anybody should ask Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State what made him to defect from PDP, he would readily point to no excuse than the fear of what most members believe is executive interference with the judiciary in the matters concerning the opposition party.

He maintained that an average PDP member today is harbouring the fear that it is whatever the Minister of the FCT wants that the court will decide, disclosing that he has painstakingly gone through the judgment of Justice J.K Omotoso in Hon. Austine Nwachukwu & ors v INEC & ors and his legal mind could not see any legal reasoning for the decisions or any legal justification for the final orders.

According to him, it is on record that the erstwhile Chairman of the PDP, Ambassador Umar Ilya Damagun, was sued as the 7th defendant, while the National Working Committee (NWC) and the National Executive of the party were sued as 5th and 6th defendants in a suit in which was obvious was intra-party and the officers were divided, asking whether in law and equity if the National Legal Adviser who belonged to the claimants’ faction should be the one to defend them against their will as opined by the court.

Lana insisted that in such circumstances, they are entitled to be heard as provided in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which is the grund norm and which every other law must bow, adding that with that kind of judgment, nobody can blame those who believe there was executive interference in the judiciary at the instance of the person who promised to hold PDP for the president.

He said: “In a suit which was obviously on intra-party matters and the officers were divided, asking whether, in law and equity, the court should insist that those not aligned to the National Legal Adviser who belonged to the other faction, should be defended by lawyers appointed by the same National Legal Adviser.

“Also in clothing itself with jurisdiction, the learned judge distinguished the case from other Supreme Court decisions which laid it down that courts have no jurisdiction over intra-party matters, on the basis of the manner in which the reliefs were couched. However, the learned judge granted orders against the PDP and its organs who are not Federal Government agencies. The orders are clearly intra-party.”

However, while hoping that this will stop at the Federal High Court, he stated that the judiciary must at all cost erase this belief while President Tinubu should in the interest of justice and peace ensure no officer of his is interfering with judicial duties with the aim of killing an opposition party.

He warned that the result, if the advice is ignored, would be devastating, insisting that one of the basis of any democracy is a thriving opposition.