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Barely 48 hours after the election of Nyesom Wike as governor was nullified, the Rivers State House of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja yesterday voided the election of the Speaker, Owaji Ibani and19 of his colleagues in the Rivers State House of Assembly. The 20 lawmakers were standard bearers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for April 11, 2015. Last Saturday, the Justice Ambrosa led Governorship Election Petition Tribunal had nullified Wike’s election on the account that the election was fraught with violence and irregularities in areas where they were held.

The State House of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal also predicated its decision to void the lawmakers’ election on the same finding. It held that the petitioners had satisfied it that the election of the House of Assembly in the state was marred with violence and irregularities and ordered that fresh election is conducted within 90 days.  Meanwhile, the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has summoned an emergency meeting of the party’s national caucus to discuss what it called an alleged onslaught against the party and its candidates in the last general elections by the APC-led Federal Government.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement yesterday said the caucus members, who are to meet on Thursday would focus on ‘the unrelenting schemes by the APC and its Federal Government to use some unpatriotic elements in the Judiciary to advance their plot to take over states won by the PDP, particularly Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Taraba and Abia states.’

Meanwhile, Governor Olusegun Mimiko has expressed dissatisfaction over the judgement of the tribunal, which sacked the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, last weekend, insisting that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will still win again. Mimiko said this in Akure yesterday, noting, however, that, “tribunal judgment can go either way, but the Rivers own is particularly embarrassing. We all know the circumstances surrounding the Rivers State tribunal.”

He stated that for unjustifiable course, the tribunal was not allowed to sit in the state, revealing that, “somewhere along the line the chairman of the tribunal was changed. Now we challenge the jurisdiction of the tribunal and it has gotten to the Supreme Court.” Also, the Rivers state governor, Nyeesom Wike yesterday described alleged wish by All Progressives Congress (APC) to unseat him as a mirage and a flitting illusion. He spoke as APC dedicated Saturday’s nullification of the state’s governorship polls by the election petition tribunal to over 100 of its members allegedly killed during the campaign period

Governor Wike, who spoke through his Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Opunabo Inko-Tariah, said the verdict by the tribunal was a fad, and that after savouring the euphoria of the victory with a short life span, the APC will come to terms with reality. “The tempest of justice cannot blow fitfully in our tribunals. I have the settled conviction that sagacity shall eventually prevail. The tribunal’s ratio decided surfers from a twin ill of eclipse of reasoning and poverty of logic and shall be subjected to the clinical prognosis of the lab of the Court of Appeal. I advise our teeming supporters not to be distraught and also remain calm. Remember, after thunder, comes rain,” he said.