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Mary Ekpere-Eta
By Akpan David, Calabar
A former Director General National Centre for Women Development, Barrister Mary Ekpere-Eta has faulted Senator-elect Eteng Williams for not properly resigning from PDP, disobeying court orders and the national leader of the party and President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
She has also cautioned Williams against running campaign of calumny against her, maintaining that she would no longer hesitate to approach the court to protect her hard earned reputation.
She issued a statement in Calabar, signed by her director of media and publicity, Njan Ndoma emphasising that Williams, speaker of the state House of Assembly was disqualified from participating in the APC Central Senatorial District primaries by the court but he disobeyed, and was later illegally declared winner of thry election.
She disclosed that even after the court disqualification and all for a rerun which excluded him, he still stood. Election and was again declared winner.
Mary Ekpere-Eta, who was one of the aspirants, said she was not satisfied but as a senior member of the party and law abiding citizen, she exhausted internal party mechanism to resolve her grievances which were without result, and decided to seek redress in court in line with the party’s constitution.
“The Abuja division of the Federal High Court saw merit in her petition and nullified the primary. It ordered the party to conduct fresh primary within fourteen days without the participation of Hon. Eteng and Chief Akin Rickett. While Chief Rickett withdrew from the exercise in line with the judgement, Eteng obeyed the judgement in breach by participating. It is important to clarify that as an aspirant in the said election, she was never informed of the date, time or venue of the rerun. She only managed to attend base on rumours that the primary was likely to hold on that day.
“A day before the said rerun, Eteng had filed an appeal against the judgement that nullified the primary but didn’t wait for the outcome before going ahead to participate in the rerun. Again, he was illegally declared winner even though by the court judgement, he was not qualified to participate.
“In what appeared as an opportunity to end the crisis, on the 20th of December, the National Leader of APC and President-elect, Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu during a town hall meeting in Calabar, publicly appealed to all members of the party that were in court to withdraw the cases to give room for reconciliation. At the time, She was not in court. Eteng was the only one in court. He ought to have withdrawn the case in line with the appeal by the National Leader but did not. Six days after the intervention, that’s 26th of December precisely, he transmitted the record of appeal to court of appeal surreptitiously. He filed his appellant brief on the 28th of December, eight days after the National Leader’s intervention.
“On noticing his surreptitious move, Barr. Ekpere-Eta filed a petition against the rerun which he participated against the judgement of the High Court because, he rejected the settlement window opened by the National Leader. Unlike what other candidates did, after the intervention, Eteng never followed up but was busy pursuing the case in court and using the media to smear the character of Ekpere-Eta. Because he wasn’t interested in the reconciliatory move by the national leader, he refused to serve her the court processes until the day of the hearing which foreclosed her from filing her brief. Despite this, all his grounds for appeal were struck out except one inconsequential one that he got a favourable judgement. Seeing that he had no interest in peace, She proceeded to Supreme Court to challenge the Appeal Court judgement.”
Ekpere-Eta maintained that it was Eteng who disobeyed and ignored the appeal by the National Leader not herself as being peddled, insisting that at the time of the intervention, she was never in court and had had no matter to withdraw.
Ekpere-Eta also insinuated that Williams had sworn an affidavit that he was not a member of APC.
She has asserted that the incessant sponsored media blackmail that she disobeyed the National Leader of APC and President-elect is weak, mischievous and hogwash.
