A political pressure group, Save Abia Now (SAN), has called on the Abia State Election Tribunal Judge and his colleagues who were involved in the judgement that upheld the election of ex-governor T.A.Orji, as senator representing Abia Central Senatorial District, to release the documents to the petitioner, Mr Ahamdi Nweke, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) senatorial candidate who was dissatisfied with the ruling, to enable him file an appeal against the judgment. The group threatened that further delay by the tribunal chairman would attract a petition to the National Judicial Council (NJC).

The group stated this in a media statement signed by the Director of Media and Publicity, Comrade Kelechi Nkworie, which was made available to News Express. The group has accused the Abia Election Tribunal judges and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of buying time in order to frustrate the efforts of the petitioner to obtain the final copy of the judgments for appeal.

“Based on the information we gathered, plans are being hatched to deny Barr Ahamdi Nweke the opportunity to appeal the ruling of Abia Central Senatorial Tribunal judgment. We are reliably informed that the chairman of the tribunal that delivered the favourable judgement for Senator T A Orji is delaying the final production of the judgement documents with the claim that he is vetting it. We were informed that of all the judgement delivered so far it is only Barr Nweke’s that has not received a copy of the judgement, despite the fact that he applied for it same day the judgement was delivered. We are worried that this delay in producing the document, is a deliberate effort by the judges and TA Orji to frustrate the petitioner in filing for an appeal within the stipulated timeframe provided by law to do so.”

The group said that it is important to remind Abians that appealing a judgement has a timeframe, and once that timeframe is lost, the appeal opportunity will be lost. As a result, it added that the petitioner affirmed that he was worried and disappointed by the attempt to block his appeal through the judges, who are expected to be impartial. “This is bad! They know their judgement was false; just to favour T A Orji. And they now want to frustrate every effort for appeal, It will not work for them, because Abians are all out to get justice.”

Save Abia group described the judgement as a rape of democracy and insult on the sensitivity of Abians who have their economic, political and social rights abused by TA Orji’s administration .We are surprised that the bad eggs in the judiciary have sold their consciences and collected resources meant to pay sacked civil servants and dead pensioners in order to uphold the election of a man who lost in his political ward.”

It noted that reports and witnesses at the tribunal testified that T.A Orji didn’t win the election; the charade was characterised by electoral fraud and falsification of results, adding: “We hereby call for the review of the election tribunal ruling by the Court of Appeal. The struggle to liberate Abia must be sustained. Abians will resist any move to subvert the will of the people to enthrone credible persons into positions of trust in order to reclaim the state.”

•Photo shows Senator TA Orji.