The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, has addressed Nigerians following the Supreme Court’s dismissal of his appeal challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu.
At critical points in my political life, I always ignored the easy but ignoble path and chosen the difficult but dignified path, the path of truth, of morality, of democracy and rule of law. But I went to the Nigerian courts to seek redress. I even went to an American court to help with unravelling what our state institutions charged with such responsibilities were unwilling or unable to do, including unravelling the qualifying academic records of the person sworn in as our President and by implication, hopefully who he really is.
Even the rebuke by retired Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad is a confirmation from within the apex court that all is not well with the Supreme Court. The court and indeed the judiciary must never lend itself to politicization as it is currently the norm with nearly every institution in Nigeria. By the way, the strong rebuke of the apex court by the revered Justice, who had meritoriously served for more than four decades, should not be swept under the carpet.
One is the erosion of trust in the electoral system and our democracy. Nigerians witnessed as the National Assembly changed the electoral law to improve transparency in the process. Of particular importance was the introduction of modern technology to help eliminate the recurring incidents of electoral manipulation, particularly during the collation of results.
Also, your lawyers, however distinguished and accomplished, may be ridiculed by the judges who may also go out of their way to make even a stronger case for the so-called “winner” than even their own lawyers were able to do. These are clearly self-help strategies and actions bereft of the law and constitutionalism. Only lawlessness and anarchy will result from such, with violence, destruction and implosion and loss of our country likely to follow.
The Constitutional Conference was expected to create the frameworks upon which a new constitution would be built in order to make the dreams of a democratic society. A number of far-reaching reforms and recommendations were made, which drew from our past experiences and aimed at safeguarding the new constitution from the mistakes of the past.