By Ogochukwu Isioma
Presidential candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to stop bullying the nation’s judiciary.
In a statement forwarded to METROWATCHXTRA.COM on Monday by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, Atiku asked President Buhari to focus on redeeming what he termed the President’s “disastrous eight years of misgovernance.”
The former Vice President was reacting to a statement credited to the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, where he berated the PDP and Labour Party (LP) for attacking President Buhari over his comment on the 2023 presidential poll.
While speaking last Thursday during a meeting with All Progressives Congress’ governors in Abuja, Buhari said while the APC was working hard to retain the presidency, opposition parties were basking in the euphoria of false hope.
However, Mohammed had also advised the aggrieved opposition political parties and their presidential candidates to stop their endless complaint over the outcome of the election in which Bola Tinubu of the APC was declared winner/President-elect.
Speaking via a statement he personally issued on Sunday, in Abuja, the information and culture minister argued that the statement by the president on the reason for the opposition parties’ loss in the 2023 election was “incontrovertible.”
Reacting, Atiku described the statement credited to Buhari as disgusting and shameful, accusing the president of “playing the role of chief marketing officer of the electoral heist deliberately orchestrated to keep the ruling APC against the wishes of Nigerians.”
Read the statement below;
PEPT: Atiku to Buhari: Stop Bullying The Judiciary
*Asks President to focus
on redeeming his disastrous 8 years of misgovernance
We have read with disgust the shameful efforts by the Muhammadu Buhari administration in playing the role of chief marketing officer of the electoral heist deliberately orchestrated to keep the ruling All Progressives Congress in power against the wishes of Nigerians.
Starting from President Muhammadu Buhari himself when he made a remark that will forever remain in infamy while hosting some governors of his party, and alleged “the opposition lost the election due to overconfidence and complacency,” we have seen a pattern whereby senior officials of government are subtly bullying the judiciary to submission.
While it is generally acknowledged that the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has a notoriety of acting busybody, it is ridiculous that the Minister will take a cue from his boss to weigh in on a matter that is already before the courts.
The Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government has already breasted the tape for being the most irresponsible government in Nigeria on account of breaking its promises.
Whereas President Buhari and his appointee INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu had promised Nigerians and the entire world of conducting a credible, free and fair 2023 general election wherein technology will be deployed to track and protect every single ballot, we have seen how woefully this administration failed to deliver on its promises.
We will not wish to explain much on the depravity that trailed the conduct of the 2023 general election since it remains a matter before the judiciary.
However, it is important to caution the APC and, especially, senior officials of the current administration to desist from making commentaries that portend as subtle acts of bullying against the judicial processes that is currently putting the legality of the last election into trial.
If officials of the Buhari government must explain anything within their remaining days, let it be about telling Nigerians how they failed on their promises including issues of naira redesign; destruction instead of creation of jobs; the pervading state of insecurity and divisions along ethno-religious and political lines; galloping inflation and high cost of living; removing the corruption around the issues of fuel subsidy and their latest promise of conducting a national census, which, typically, they have failed to deliver upon.
They must also explain to Nigerians why the country that they are leaving behind before going back to Niger Republic is the poverty capital of the world.
E-Signed:
Paul Ibe
Media Adviser to Atiku Abubakar
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party and Vice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007
Abuja
1st May, 2023.
