TheCable

The media office of Rotimi Amaechi says the attempt by Kayode Ajulo, human rights lawyer, to stop the presidential hopeful from contesting for the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket is futile.

Ajulo said section 137 (1)(i) of the 1999 constitution prohibits Amaechi from running for office owing to the allegation of fraud against him.

Nyesom Wike, Rivers state governor, had set up a seven-man panel to probe Amaechi over the alleged withdrawal of N96 billion from the state’s treasury during his tenure as governor.

The panel was said to have indicted some persons, including the former governor.

But Amaechi challenged the panel’s decision up to the supreme court. The supreme court dismissed the appeal, but held that the panel cannot indict Amaechi because it does not have powers of a court.

The apex court described the panel as ”merely investigative” and lacking ”legal force”.

In a statement on Friday, David Iyofor, spokesman of the former minister, said the lawyer cannot interpret the country’s law better than the supreme court.

“The supreme court was unambiguous in its judgment that Governor Nyesom Wike’s Commission report was a mere report that is ‘not enforceable’ in law, with absolutely ‘no legal force’,” Iyofor said.

“The supreme court went further to rule that Wike’s Commission clearly had ‘no judicial powers or power to adjudicate’; ruling categorically that the Commission’s probe is ‘not a civil or criminal trial’ of Amaechi, and that ‘its findings (whatever it is) is not a conviction of Amaechi but a mere investigation.’

“Kayode Ajulo does not know and cannot interpret our laws better than the Supreme Court. Ajulo’s shameful attempt to twist and turn the ruling of our apex court upside down is repulsive and beyond disgusting.

“His intervention is a crazy futile attempt to use the report of a clear witch-hunt of Amaechi by Wike, to stop Amaechi from participating in the presidential elections.”