President Bola Tinubu is not interfering with the judiciary in court decisions relating to the 2023 elections, the presidency has stated.
The presidency also said Tinubu has no plan to impose a one-party state on the country.
The reactions from the presidency come after some accusations from the People’s Democratic Party and its 2023 presidential candidate. Atiku Abubakarthat Mr. Tinubu is interfering with the courts to tilt court rulings in the direction of the APC and that he has a plan to turn Nigeria into a one-party country.
Some recent appellate court rulings on the 2023 election results have been in favor of the APC leaving the opposition, especially the PDP, furious.
In a statement on Monday, the Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, called on the PDP and Atiku to stop raising false alarms over the sentences.
The statement said the accusations are deliberately aimed at “unnecessarily heating up the political system and causing disenchantment in our country.” “They only exist in the imagination of the PPD and the former vice president.”
Read the full statement below:
HOUSE PRESS STATEMENT
PPD, ATIKU RAISE FALSE ALARM
In separate statements, the Peoples Democratic Party and the spokesperson of Atiku Abubakar, its defeated presidential candidate, threw caution to the wind in attacking the integrity of the judiciary and leveling wild and defamatory allegations against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In the wake of the poor run of some elected governors of the party in the court of appeal, the PDP and the former vice president and his spokesperson have become openly desperate to blame their problems on President Tinubu and the judiciary, an important arm of the government in Nigeria. .
By blaming others, Atiku and his party have failed to demonstrate whether they had done any soul-searching before making public their significant, misleading, reckless and irresponsible allegations.
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While we do not fall short on the judiciary, we urge Nigerians to debunk 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 impose a single party. been in the country appointing “loyalists” as Resident Electoral Commissioners (CER).
President Tinubu is a democrat to the core. We dare say that, as president, he has not interfered in the judgment of the judiciary. We had witnessed how, under his leadership, the PDP governor in Osun defeated the APC in the Supreme Court.
Similarly, the PDP governor in Bauchi also won his case at the appeal court, defeating the APC.
President Tinubu is also not planning to impose a one-party state as Atiku has serially claimed and his party and its spokesperson have now parroted.
These accusations are deliberately aimed at unnecessarily heating up the political system and causing disenchantment in our country. They only exist in the imagination of the PPD and the former vice president.
Unlike Atiku Abubakar, President Tinubu’s record as a quintessential democrat and staunch defender of the rule of law has been recognized globally.
His record of service as governor, which witnessed gigantic strides in various facets of the state, was responsible for the dominance of his political structure in Lagos and not for any undemocratic conduct as Atiku Abubakar would have the public believe.
In contrast, Atiku Abubakar is reported to have recently confessed about the electoral heist that his party carried out in the southwest in 2003 and which Tinubu survived among the six governors of the defunct Alliance for Democracy.
As Atiku and the PDP now cry over the rulings of the Court of Appeal on the gubernatorial elections in Plateau, Zamfara and Nasarawa states, we hastened to ask the former vice president where he was in 2019 when the court ruled against the All Congress Progressives in Zamfara State. The court then awarded all the seats won by the APC to the 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?
Where were Atiku and the PDP in 2019, when on the eve of the inauguration of Bayelsa Governor-elect David Lyon, the Supreme Court handed the APC victory to the PDP candidate, Governor Diri, who had earlier been rejected in The Bayelsa People’s Survey?
Atiku and the PDP then savored all these trophies awarded by the courts as sweet victories for the PDP and celebrated the courts as protectors of democracy.
Now that the same courts are nullifying the victories of the PDP, based on the flagrant violations of the law by the illegal party, the party is confusing the judiciary and President Tinubu.
We once again implore Atiku and the PDP to stop their campaign of slander and blackmail against the judiciary and the honorable judges and magistrates. Judgments are based on law and evidence. In cases of electoral petitions, they are based on the Electoral Law and the Constitution, not on feelings and emotions.
It is irresponsible and a disservice to our country that the opposition, after failing to observe the letter and spirit of the law, is now turning around to tear down an important arm of our government.
Bayo Onanuga
Special Advisor to the President on Information and Strategy
November 20, 2023
