Groups loyal to Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State and the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, are at each other’s throats over the pending judgement of the Court of Appeal on Sylva’s case challenging the election of Dickson.
Not satisfied with the verdict of the election petition tribunal which upheld the victory of Dickson, former governor Sylva filed an appeal asking the higher court to set aside the ruling and to grant his prayers.
But as the people of the state await the verdict of the appeal court, loyalists of both camps are throwing tantrums at each other.
The camp of Dickson through a group identified as Movement for the Independence of the Judiciary in the Niger Delta (MIJN), faulted the membership of the panel of justices handling the case.
The group in a statement reportedly signed by its National President, Mr. Patrice Egribido, questioned the states of origin of the judges claiming that they were all drawn from only APC-controlled states.
Egribido claimed that it could not have been coincidental that the five justices were selected from only APC states alleging that the skewed selection smacks of suspicion.
He alleged that the development confirmed the fears of the opposition that the justices were on a pre-determined mission and not to deliver justice.
He queried: “Does it mean that the President of the Court of Appeal is not sensitive to the Nigeria political reality? Or is she saying that there are no competent justices in PDP-controlled states?
“Even as a non- political group, we are sensitive to the sensitivity of electoral contest and pluralism of Nigeria; is the Judiciary blind to these realities?”
But the Bayelsa Professional Youths Forum (BPYF), a group loyal to Sylva, asked the camp of Dickson to stop its familiar terrain of blackmailing revered justices.
The group in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Dr. Edison Bibiaredei, alleged that some loyalists of the governor were making efforts to infiltrate the appeal panel.
He claimed that a Bayelsan with connection to the Supreme Court had been contacted to ‘reach concerned judges’ in respect of the Appeal Court.
“This has become very imperative in view of several unguarded utterances made by the camp of Dickson that they already perfected plans to procure a favourable verdict as far as the appeal instituted by Sylva is concerned”, he said.
He said huge sums of money had been made available to facilitate the moves and sway the verdict against Sylva.
He claimed that the group had forwarded a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the development.
He said: “May we at this point, call on Nigerians to ignore Dickson’s camp’s false alarm as regards the closeness of a certain judge on the appeal panel to Sylva.
“To say the least, this is the camp’s usual style whenever they have perfected acts as in the case under scrutiny.
“The alarm is a pre-emptive act meant to deter and possibly, suppress our curiosity over the movement of huge cash bags to Abuja.
“For the records, there are several blackmail outlets already being bankrolled by the Dickson’s camp both in the conventional media and online platforms with similar conclusions aimed at blackmailing the same Nigerian judiciary to do their bidding”.