Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, faulted the National working Committee of All Progressives Congress (APC) over attack on Governor Caleb Mutswang for the non-swearing in of 16 lawmakers of the APC lawmakers following the ruling of the appeal court.

The group, which expressed shock and disappointing over the attack, stressed that the governor is not a lawmaker in Plateau State and is the head of another branch of government, which is the executive arm.

According to the rights group, if the APCs’ leaders cannot understand the sanctity of the principles of separation of powers, then our democracy is endangered.

HURIWA, in a statement by its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko called on the APC to train their leaders to understand the principles of separation of powers.

Besides, HURIWA backed the 16 PDP elected members of the Plateau State House of Assembly, whose elections were over-turned erroneously by the court of Appeal based on pre-election matter, to seek for a review of the injustice meted out to them by the Appeal Court since those decisions were against extant judgments of the supreme court of Nigeria.

The group said it is of the conviction that unless the Supreme Court of Nigeria finds ways and means of righting the constitutional errors of the Court of Appeal on the validity of the elections of the 16 original members of the PDP produced during the 2023 General election, it would mean that Plateau state’s House of Assembly would be largely dominated by impostors because their victory is built on faulty legal grounds which must be reviewed and redressed.

The Rights group said there was no reason why APC is unwilling to allow the 16 original lawmakers of the PDP whose lawful elections were annulled wrongfully by the court of Appeal to exhaust their legal right to seek for review of the injustice since there are abundance of evidence that a plethora of Supreme Court judgments were breached by the court of Appeal panel that unseated them illegally.

“We wish to borrow from Chief Babalola (San) concerning the principle of law is that one cannot give that which he does not have.

“This principle is derived from the latin maxim – nemo dat non habet. It is upon this threshold that modern state constitutions acknowledge and embody the doctrine of separation of powers in the delineation of governmental powers to institutions and functionaries of government in such a manner that each circuit of governmental powers namely, legislative, executive and judiciary are administered by separate and distinct individuals.

“Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) further stated that the Legislative Arm of government is empowered to make, amend or even repeal laws. The Executive Arm of government is empowered to execute the constitution (laws), formulate policies and maintain law and order. Judicial powers of government are vested in court of law duly established or recognized by the Constitution.