Presidency tackles Atiku over claim on court verdicts
The Presidency yesterday rejected the allegation by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its former presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, that President Bola Tinubu was muzzling the opposition and foisting a one-party state on Nigeria.
It accused PDP and Atiku of raising a false alarm and embarking on a campaign of calumny, following their defeat at the last general election.
According to the Presidency, these allegations are deliberately aimed at unnecessarily heating up the polity and causing public disenchantment, adding that they exist only in the imagination of the PDP and the former vice-president.
It emphasised that “President Tinubu is also not planning to impose a one-party state as Atiku has serially alleged and his party and spokesman have now parroted.”
Atiku, in a statement by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, accused the president of assaulting the ballot box and the judicial process by influencing judges handling post-2023 poll litigations.
Atiku alleged that President Tinubu cannot tolerate opposition, stressing that he adopted the same style when he was governor of Lagos State.
He also said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) harbours an inglorious ideology of ‘snatch, grab and run away with power,’ adding that it has also turned the judiciary into a ‘cash and carry’ arm of government.
But, objecting to the allegations, which it described as malicious, the Presidency said Atiku and PDP were visiting their frustrations on President Tinubu and the ruling party, following their defeat at the poll.
A statement by the Special Adviser to President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, titled: ‘PDP, Atiku raising false alarm,’ said: “In separate statements, the Peoples Democratic Party and the spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, its defeated Presidential candidate, threw caution to the winds as they assaulted the integrity of the judiciary and made wild and libellous allegations against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“In the wake of the poor run of some elected governors of the party at the appeal court, the PDP and former Vice President and his spokesman have become overtly desperate to hang their woes on President Tinubu and the judiciary, an important arm of government in Nigeria.
“In blaming others, Atiku and his party have failed to demonstrate whether they had done any soul-searching before going public with their weighty, specious, reckless and irresponsible allegations.
“While we do not hold brief for the judiciary, we urge Nigerians to discountenance the malicious allegations by the PDP and its candidate that President Tinubu as governor of Lagos, silenced the opposition and corrupted the judiciary and that he is planning to foist a one-party state on the country by appointing “loyalists” as Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).
“President Tinubu is a democrat to the core. We make bold to say that as president, he has not interfered with the judgment of the judiciary. We had witnessed how under his watch the PDP governor in Osun defeated the APC at the Supreme Court.
Similarly, the PDP Governor in Bauchi also won his case in the Appeal court, beating the APC.
“President Tinubu is also not planning to impose a one-party state as Atiku has serially alleged and his party and spokesman have now parroted.
“These allegations are deliberately aimed at unnecessarily heating up the polity and causing disenchantment in our country. They exist only in the imagination of the PDP and the former vice-president.
“Unlike Atiku Abubakar, President Tinubu’s record as a democrat par excellence and a strong advocate of the rule of law have been globally acknowledged.
“His record of service as governor, which witnessed giant strides in various facets of the state, was responsible for the dominance of his political structure in Lagos and not by any undemocratic conduct, as Atiku Abubakar wants the public to believe.
“In contrast, it is on record that Atiku Abubakar recently confessed about the electoral heist his party executed in the South West in 2003 which Tinubu survived out of the six Governors of the defunct Alliance for Democracy.
“While Atiku and PDP are now crying wolf over the Appeal Court rulings on governorship polls in Plateau, Zamfara and Nasarawa States, we hasten to ask the former Vice President where he was in 2019 when the court ruled against All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State. The court then awarded all the positions won by the APC to PDP.
“Where was Atiku also in 2019 when in Rivers State, the court stopped APC from fielding any candidate in both the Governorship and House of Assembly elections?.
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“Where was Atiku and the PDP in 2019, when on the eve of the swearing-in of Bayelsa governor-elect, David Lyon, the Supreme Court handed the victory of the APC to the candidate of the PDP, Governor Diri who was earlier rejected at the poll by the people of Bayelsa?.
“Atiku and PDP then savoured all these court-handed trophies as sweet victories for PDP and celebrated the courts as protectors of democracy.
“Now that the same courts are annulling PDP victories, based on the blatant violations of the law by the lawless party, the party is mudslinging the judiciary and President Tinubu.
“We once again implore Atiku and PDP to stop their campaign of calumny and blackmail against the judiciary and the honourable judges and justices. Judgments are based on law and evidence. In election petition cases, they are based on the Electoral Act and the Constitution, not on sentiments and emotions.
“It is irresponsible and a disservice to our country for the opposition, after failing to observe the letters and spirits of the law, to now turn around to tear down an important arm of our government.”
Tinubu’s agenda inimical to democracy, says Atiku
Atiku maintained that President Tinubu harboured an agenda for grabbing power, influencing judiciary and muzzling the opposition.
He said: “Either through the electoral process where opposition parties are rigged out with brazen impunity, or during the post-election court processes where the judiciary is conspicuously doing the biddings of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), it has become increasingly apparent that the democracy in Nigeria is in a state of ill-health.”
The statement by the former vice president reads: “The ideal notion of democracy does not just reside in a representative government but essentially rooted in the plurality of ideas. Thus, for a system to be seen as truly democratic, it must necessarily accommodate opposition and opposing views.
“Sadly and suddenly, we have seen a trend whereby the range of opposition engagement continues to be narrowed by the ruling party in Nigeria.
“It gets more curious that all the states where the courts have made controversial declarations are states being controlled by the opposition political parties. From Nassarawa, Kano, Zamfara and now to Plateau State, where we are witnessing a situation in which what the ruling party missed out on Election Day are being delivered to them through the courts. (Nasarawa State is being governed by Governor Adullahi Sule of the APC)
“These are clearly ominous signs that threaten not just our faith in the electoral and judicial system but evincing that our democracy is compromised.
“It is also crystal clear that the ruling party will not desist from this inglorious ideology of ‘snatch, grab and run away with power.’
“It is even more worrisome that what is playing out now in the Plateau governorship election petition is a confirmation of the threat echoed by an APC lawmaker in a viral video that the ruling party will compromise the judicial process to ensure its ultimate victory in the courts.
“It, therefore, means that the times we are in are indeed ominous, and the journey ahead in rescuing our democracy from these buccaneering power grabbers is a long one. It also means that every man and woman of good conscience should come together for this common patriotic purpose.
“But, we are not surprised by what is going on. In Lagos State where Tinubu holds sway as godfather, opposition became an anathema.
“Everyone, including judges was forced to join his party. The few opposition members who managed to get elected were beaten to submission including at the Lagos State House of Assembly where the sole PDP member back in 2018 was suspended and arrested for gun running but mysteriously had the charges dropped immediately after he defected to the APC.
“Recently, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) withdrew N135bn lawsuit it had instituted against an opposition senator from Anambra State, less than 24 hours after he defected to the ruling party.
“These are the crude methods that Bola Tinubu has employed in order to reduce the ranks of the opposition and consolidate his hold on power.
“Is it not mysterious that it was the same panel that sat and heard all the election petition cases from Plateau State before the Court of Appeal? How is it that in election cases where the PDP came first and the APC came second, the court ordered that the APC be declared winner while in elections where the PDP came first and Labour Party came second, the courts ordered a rerun in order to give the APC a chance of victory?
“As Justice Dattijo Muhammad said in his valedictory speech which has also been buttressed by Olumide Akpata, the immediate past President of the Nigerian Bar Association, the judgments emanating from courts in recent times have been questionable and show obvious compromise.
“As Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) put it recently, the judiciary under military dictatorship was much more courageous and had better integrity than what we have today.”
“It is obvious that the APC has turned the once respected Nigerian judiciary to a “cash and carry” one where politicians who don’t participate in primaries are named as candidates while actual winners of elections are sacked for flimsy reasons. They simply deliver judgments but not justice.
“Apart from the judiciary, Tinubu has already appointed his loyalists as Resident Electoral Commissioners who have now been confirmed by Sen. Godswill Akpabio, his lackey who is supposed to be heading an independent arm of government. This is how the APC plans to impose a one-party state on Nigerians.
“Eternal vigilance remains the watch word if Nigeria’s democracy will survive the APC onslaught on our democracy and the institutions that are supposed to check the excesses of the ruling party.”
