Despite their sacking by the Court of Appeal, the 16 lawmakers elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have said they will resume legislative duties on Tuesday as the Plateau State House Assembly begins plenary.

 

The All Progressive Congress (APC) in the state described the planned resumption of the sacked PDP lawmakers as an invitation to anarchy and a threat to democracy, insisting that the lawmakers remain sacked.

 

The Court of Appeal in Abuja had in November sacked all the 16 members on the grounds that the party had no structure to nominate them as candidates.

 

Addressing a press conference in Jos, on Monday, the 16 lawmakers, led by a former Majority Leader, Yobo Ishaku, said since the Supreme Court, which upheld the election of Governor Caleb Mutfwang on the same issue had ruled that the PDP had a valid structure to nominate them as candidates, the verdict of the Court of Appeal sacking them as lawmakers had become null.

 

Ishaku, who insisted that they were products of democracy who were validly elected by their various constituents also said, “Our constituents are ready and willing to accompany us to our sitting tomorrow because they voted for us and they are not ready to compromise that.”

 

The PDP lawmakers called on President Bola Tinubu as well as the heads of the Nigeria judiciary to sanction the President of the Court of Appeal under whose watch they were sacked.

 

In a statement issued on Monday by the APC Publicity Secretary, Sylvanus Namang, the Plateau APC said the plan and threats by the sacked members to resume was not only an assault on democracy but an insurrection against the state.

 

“It has come to the notice of the Plateau State chapter of the APC, a plan by the 16 members of the PDP sacked by the Court of Appeal last year to invade the House, which resumes sitting tomorrow (Tuesday) after nearly two months recess as sitting members of the Plateau State House of Assembly.

 

“According to information reaching us, the members sat at an undisclosed location and addressed the press on their invidious and diabolical plan.”