The Justice Initiative for the Disadvantaged and Oppressed Persons (JIDOP) has demanded a recall of legislators who emerged under controversial circumstances and against the will of the people in Zamfara State.
The call was contained in a press statement signed by the Chairman, Board of Trustee of the organisation, Lawman Nzenwa, stating that massive recall of legislators will give the electorates a fresh opportunity to elect legislators of their choice.
It would be recalled that the Supreme Court of Nigeria restrained the All Progressives Congress (APC) from participating in the 2019 general elections in Rivers State and Zamfara State which brought about the ‘imposition’ of legislators on the people.
The statement expressed dismay over the submission by certain quarters that the APC should apply to the Supreme Court for the review of its well-informed decisions in the cases of the two affected states.
“We strongly oppose such a move that has the capacity to further exacerbate the negative perception that Nigerians and the international community have of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
“We therefore advocate that rather than make moves that could and would ridicule the Supreme Court and the Nigerian Judiciary any further, the APC and its members should mobilize the electorates, particularly in Zamfara State, for the recall of the legislators who benefited from the Supreme Court’s judgment that foisted them on the electorates,” it said.
It added that upon the successful recall of the said legislators, fresh elections should be conducted in which the APC can participate if it qualified adding that if the APC candidates were the popular choices of the electorates in the elections held earlier, then the same electorates would vote for the APC again.
It explained that the implication of recall and fresh election is that the courts and the Judiciary will no longer pass as the last hope of the electorates as is being wrongly believed.
” The last hope of the electorates is the electorates themselves in whose hands lie the power to hire and fire their representatives, and who need not resort to violence or act extra-judicially when their mandate is tampered with,” the statement said.
The group cautioned the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) whose candidates were the direct beneficiaries of the political misfortune that befell the APC, over celebrating too much as the Supreme Court whose judgment favoured it might not favour it the next time.
