By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor & Henry Umoru

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC were last night locked in a war of words over alleged plans by the present administration to meddle with election tribunals in some PDP controlled states.

The PDP accused the APC controlled administration of shopping for pliable judges to supposedly replace principled judges arbitrating election cases in Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Abia, Taraba and Delta States with the aim of the APC taking over the states.

The assertions were immediately dismissed by the APC which affirmed that it would not micromanage the judiciary even as it accused the PDP of being jittery on account of the fact that it stole the elections in the affected states.

The APC affirmed that the PDP’s fears about Rivers, Akwa Ibom and the other states were essentially because they were the cash cows of the opposition party.

The PDP, in its statement had claimed that it has “concrete evidence that the APC administration in its desperation is set to transfer uncooperative tribunal judges and replace them with malleable ones to overturn PDP’s electoral victory in Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Abia, Taraba and Delta states and hand them over to the APC.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement said that: “Part of the plot is to use the Department of State Services (DSS) and some unscrupulous officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to tamper with official records of evidence and other electoral documents in INEC’s custody for presentation at the tribunals, which would be manned by the compromised judicial officials”.

“We have uncovered an unholy alliance between the DSS and INEC to interfere directly in the activities of election tribunals in some PDP states by removing and altering some records in INEC and instigating the APC to insist that there were no elections in those states.

Noting earlier assertions by erstwhile chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega that elections were conducted in the aforementioned states, the PDP claimed that the APC controlled administration using security agencies and the new leadership of INEC commenced a process of coercing the tribunal judges to subvert justice. The party said that judges proving difficult were set to be transferred.

“The PDP insists that the judiciary should not be interfered with, and should be allowed to play its role in our democracy. The APC should stop harassing, intimidating or attempting to remove judges who are not responding to their dirty tricks.

Rebuffing the allegations, the APC charged the PDP to stop denigrating the judiciary by suggesting that Tribunal judges handling the various election petitions can be influenced, saying the APC-led Federal Government will not micromanage the judiciary.

The party in a statement issued in Lagos last night by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the PDP is throwing wild allegations against the Tribunals in Rivers and other states because the party knows it stole the votes in those states.

“The affected states are the cashcows of the PDP, hence the party is so jittery about losing the states, which they know they did not win in the first instance.”