2 February 2019
PRESS STATEMENT: PURPORTED INJUNCTION GRANTED USANI: A MERE FABRICATION
The attention of the APC/Sen. John Owan Enoh Governorship Campaign Organisation has been drawn to a fake news circulating around to the effect that an Abuja court had granted injunction sought by the Hon. Minster of Niger Delta Affairs Dr. Usani Uguru Usani restraining the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) from publishing the name of our candidate, Sen. John Owan Enoh in the list of governorship candidates cleared by the electoral umpire for the March 2, Governorship election.
To clear the air and separate our supporters and the general public from all anxieties, we wish to state as follows:
That at about 5.30pm on Wednesday January 30, 2019, as our Presidential Campaign was going on in Calabar, we were served an application asking the Hon. Justice I. E. Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from publishing the APC list of candidates submitted by the party and accepted by INEC. A hearing notice requiring all parties to be in court yesterday, January 31, 2019, was attached.
First, if one is served with such application, the rules of court allow one two (2) days to respond to it, without which, the application should ordinarily not be heard.
The judge then ordered that parties should maintain the status quo. To all intents and purposes, status quo means that:
(a). Our candidates for Governorship, National and State Houses of Assembly, won their primaries.
(b). Our party, the APC, submitted their names to INEC.
(c). INEC had, before the application, published list of all candidates cleared for the election.
Note that INEC published the National Assembly list two weeks ago and the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly was published in the morning of Wednesday January 30 before the application was issued. These lists contain our candidates in all ramifications.
That the case in question is not between Usani and our Governorship candidate, Sen. John Owan Enoh, but between Usani on one hand and INEC/APC, on the other.
That the two page order of the court yesterday ( January 31, 2019) was not restraining but asked for the maintaining of the status quo ante. The first page usually contains what an applicant asked for and the second, which is the most important, sets out what the court has granted.
The court order is made for the res (subject matter of the court action) to be observed, subjecting all parties to maintain the status quo ante (previously existing state of affairs before the parties went to court) pending the determination of the matter, slated for February 5, 2019 for the interlocutory application and hearing of the substantive case.
That since our candidate, Sen. John Owan Enoh is not even a defendant in the case, the Order does not affect his position in any way. This is also applicable to our National and State Assemblies candidates.
That assuming ( without conceding), that the said Order was a restraining Order of injunction, it would have been a nullity because the act had been concluded on January 17 and 30, respectively, as an injunction cannot lie or be subsumed for an act that has taken place, in law.
Given the above clarifications, we hold that Usani's fabrication that he obtained a court injunction restraining INEC from publishing our candidate, Sen. John Owan Enoh as APC governorship candidate for the March 2, 2019 gubernatorial election is spurious and fallacious. If Usani is not just wafting odium and dancing to the drumbeats of his sponsor, Senator Ben Ayade of the Peoples Democratic Party, who is afraid of meeting Sen. Owan Enoh in the ring, why has he not tendered his resignation as Minister 30 days to the election, as stipulated in both the Constitution and the Electoral Act?
Usani has really paraded a very negative image of the average Nigerian politician who prefers politics of lies, manipulations and subterfuge to politics of civility and decorum. On Monday, January 7, 2019, a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Apo, Abuja, presided over by Justice Olukayode Adeniyi, rejected Usani's claim to being the governorship candidate of the APC in Cross River State.
Justice Adeniyi, who delivered judgement on USANI vs APC, INEC & OWAN ENOH, actually dismissed the suit brought before him by Usani himself with the assertion that:
Usani's case was full of contradictory claims and forgeries (he forged signatures of party leaders which was later uncovered by the Court).
Usani's affidavit in support of originating summons, was unreliable.
Usani was NOT found to be an aspirant and his case not justiciable in tandem with the laws of the country.
That the Etim John's supervised primary was illegal and contrary to the party's constitution and guidelines for primaries.
Consequently, the Court dismissed Usani's prayer for him to be declared the governorship candidate but rather declared Sen. John Owan Enoh the APC standard bearer in Cross River State, affirming the party's action as demonstrated at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium , Uyo on Friday December 28, 2018 when he (Owan Enoh) was officially handed its flag as its standard bearer in Cross River State for the March 2, governorship election.
If the party leadership has condoned for so long, Usani's excesses and criminal tendencies ranging from outright disobedience to court rulings, disrespect for party constitution and rules of engagement, to blatant lies, forgeries, perjury and circulation of fake news thereby subjecting the exalted office of Minister in the federal cabinet to ridicule, we believe that now is the time for him to be brought before a court of competent jurisdiction to answer charges for these crimes.
If Usani and his sponsors are not deluded beyond redemption, these protagonists of the crisis in our party in the state must be dismayed that beyond the vast fortunes that they have accumulated over the years as political jobbers, they have little to show in terms of followership in their home state, for all the frenzied manipulations, the willful distortions and obfuscation, the blackmail and the lying that have been systematically employed by them to consecrate their dubious desire to continue to lay our dear state in ruins.
But responsible and enlightened political engineering demands that politicians should demonstrate the equanimity to accept defeat and the magnanimity to share their victory, for our democracy to be sustained and consolidated. Politics must not be a do-or-die affair.
Signed:
Dan AMOR
Media Spokesman for Sen. John Owan Enoh Campaign Organization.
Abuja,
February 1, 2019.
