After 25 days of recess to mark the end of its third legislative session and the recently celebrated Eid-el-Fitri, both chambers of the National Assembly resume plenary today for debates and possibly legislations on ranging issues in the land. TAIYE ODEWALE examines some of the issues that may be the focus this week, particularly in the Senate.
Kogi East palaver
First of such issues in the Senate though that may be devoid of debates, is whether to obey court judgement directing it to swear in Senator Isaac Alfa as the Senator representing Kogi East senatorial district as against Senator Attai Aidoko Ali occupying the seat since December 2016 when an appeal court ruled in his favour by nullifying ruling of Justice Dimgba of an High Court declaring Alfa as the authentic candidate of PDP for the 2015 National Assembly election.
It would be recalled that at the 2015 general elections, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Abdulrahaman Abubakar, was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and subsequently sworn in as senator for Kogi East on 15th June, 2015 when the 8th Senate was inaugurated but later sacked from the seat by the courts through litigation against his election by Senator Attai Aidoko, who contested against him as a PDP candidate.
However, in the re-run election ordered by the court of Appeal, Senator Aidoko couldn’t participate on account of ruling from a Federal High Court, Abuja, presided by Justice Dimgba recognising Isaac Alfa as the authentic candidate of the PDP going by result of the party’s primaries in December 2014.
Alfa, therefore, participated in the re-run and defeated candidates from the other parties and was subsequently sworn in as Senator for Kogi East Senatorial District, precisely in September 2016.
But three months after in December of the same year, Aidoko approached the appeal court which questioned the failure of Mr Dimgba to look beyond the originating summons in the motion brought before it by Mr Alfa.
Subsequently, the appeal court nullified the decision of the lower court and ordered the return of Mr Aidoko as the authentic PDP candidate in the said election upon which he was sworn in by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.
Irked by the turn of the legal tussle, at the Appeal Court, Mr Alfa appealed the judgement at the Supreme Court, resulting in the June 2017 decision of the apex court ordering the matter to be retried at the lower court which many believed nullified the mandate of Aidoko.
The consequence of which led to the sacking of Aidoko by Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court , Abuja on Wednesday, 13th June 2018 by ordering for immediate reinstatement of Isaac Alfa as the elected senator for Kogi East .
In a lengthy judgement, the judge condemned the decision of the PDP to present Mr Aidoko as its senatorial candidate in the 2015 general election, despite knowing that his challenger Isaac Alfa won the party’s primaries and was given a return ticket by electoral umpire, INEC. Mr Kolawole said the PDP used rogue elements to include Mr Aidoko’s name among the list of candidates for the March 2015 election and described the act as, “an exercise in futility.”
