The Zamfara chapter of the All Progressives Congress has cautioned Governor Dauda Lawal to stop the judicial harassment of the state lawmakers who chose to form a parallel assembly for peace to reign in the state.
In a statement made available to newsmen on Sunday, the Publicity Secretary of the party, Yusuf Idris stated the governor should have sat with the aggrieved members and amicably resolve the crisis in order to move the state forward, instead of using the judiciary to harass them.
Idris stressed that the Governor would not achieve anything by using his office to harass and intimidate the Honourable members, who refused to be manipulated by his government and decided to form a parallel assembly for the benefit of their constituents.
Idris said the state government has continued to “witch-hunt” the nine elected members of the State House of Assembly by using the judiciary as a tool to order their arrest without any summon.
“We at the Zamfara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have found it disturbing and embarrassing how the state government is using the machinery of the judiciary to attack constitutionally elected members of the State House of Assembly for executing their legislative functions”.Even though a case is pending in the Court of Appeal, Sokoto in addition to a petition written to the Inspector General of Police, the Director General of the DSS, the National Security Adviser, the National Assembly and other stakeholders by the aggrieved law makers extracted from both the ruling PDP and opposition APC in the state, the Magistrate Court went ahead to order for the arrest of the members without any charge nor summon
“We are therefore calling on the state government under Governor Dauda Lawal to stop these harassment, sit with the aggrieved members and amicably resolve the crisis in order to move forward,” the statement reads.Idris said, ”Although the APC will continue to be on the right side of the law, the party will not allow judicial officers to be politicised and used against public interests.’
He maintained that the party would resist any attempt to witch-hunt its members just for voicing out the security situation of their various constituencies, which the government failed to address.
He finally called on the nine aggrieved members to petition the Judicial Service Commission against the court order granted by the Magistrate in order to serve as a lesson to other judicial officers.
