Presidential poll: CPC moves to get favourable judgment at tribunal

BY Jide Ajani
ABUJA — The Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, may have perfected a plan to ensure that it gets a favourable judgment at the Appeal Court which is hearing its petition against the election of President Goodluck Jonathan, Vanguard has learnt.

Also, the party is considering moves to ensure that it assists in stabilising the new leadership of the House of Representatives. This, it plans to do in collaboration with other opposition political parties in the country.

General Muhammadu Buhari, the party’s presidential candidate at the April elections, has also called for a Board of Trustees, BoT, meeting of the party to discuss a possible restructuring.

Vanguard learnt that at a meeting held at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja, last Tuesday, the leadership of the party informed members that it had already engaged a process that would ensure that it gets a favourable judgment from the Court of Appeal presently hearing its petition against President Jonathan.

Vanguard was made to understand that “the party is apprehensive that it may not get favourable judgment from the courts.”

In addition, the party is set to enforce a contributory regime that would see each National Assembly member of CPC extraction, contributing N250,000.00, while their counterparts in the state legislature would be expected to contribute N150,000.00.

Vanguard gathered that on Monday, June 13, 2011, the leadership of the party met with a very influential and powerful Nigerian with immense standing and understanding of the judicial system who reportedly advised that foot-dragging on the petition until August, 2011, when the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Katsina-Alu would have retired, would be a good strategy.

While reporting back to the members, a national officer of the CPC reportedly expressed the fear that “no matter tthe merit of the petition” on the presidential election, the fears are that we may not get justice.

The leadership of the party has also made it clear that “the CPC has directed its elected National Assembly Legislators that, should the PDP and the Presidency insist on removing TAMBUWAL from Office as Speaker using the instrumentality of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), opposition political Parties including the Action Congress of Nigeria, (A CN), the ANP P and the CPC, have all agreed that their elected National Assembly members should threaten to impeach Mr. President, in order to keep him off-balance.

The participants were told that the CPC has been assured of hard, irrefutable evidences of impeachment, against Mr. President that could lead to his eventual impeachment.