Atiku rubbishes S’Court judgment, presidency calls for ex-Vp retirement
The Presidency and the All Progressives Congress, on Monday, knocked the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, following his allegation that the Supreme Court rewarded illegalities by upholding the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the February 25 presidential poll.
Atiku, who addressed a press conference in Abuja on Monday, formally reacted to last week’s judgment of the apex court, which dismissed his lawsuit to challenge Tinubu’s electoral victory.
But in its reaction to Atiku’s attack on the President and the apex court, the Presidency took a sharp jab at the former Vice President, saying he went into the February poll “with a fragmented and tattered umbrella.’’
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, stated this in a statement titled: ‘Time for Atiku Abubakar to finally go away and end his ambition to be President.”
Onanuga added, “There was no way Atiku and the PDP could have won the election with the party platform under which he contested broken into four parts.”
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, ended the 171-day legal tussle to nullify the election of Tinubu with the rejection of the election appeals filed by the PDP standard bearer and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
In the lead judgment delivered by the Chairman of the seven-man panel, Justice Inyang Okoro, the apex court refused to consider the academic records of the President obtained from the Chicago State University, which Atiku sought to tender as fresh evidence to prove his allegation of certificate forgery against the ex-Lagos State governor.
Okoro stated, “It is a settled law that the time fixed by the constitution for the doing of anything cannot be extended, it is immutable, and it is fixed like the rock of Gibraltar, and it cannot be moved, expanded and elongated, or stretched beyond what it states.’’
But while speaking to journalists in Abuja on Monday, Atiku derided the verdict of the Supreme Court, describing it as an endorsement of illegality.
He expressed his disappointment in the turn of events, declaring that Nigeria was the biggest loser.
Atiku said despite the disappointment, he felt accomplished to have shown Nigerians the kind of President they had, adding that he would remain in politics.
He said, “Someone asked me what I would do if I lost my election petition appeal at the Supreme Court. In response, I said that as long as Nigeria won, the struggle would have been worth the while. By that, I meant that the bigger loss would not be mine but Nigeria’s if the Supreme Court legitimises illegality, including forgery, identity theft, and perjury.
Atiku blames court
“If the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, implies by its judgment that crime is good and should be rewarded, then Nigeria has lost, and the country is doomed irrespective of who occupies the Presidential seat.”
He said instead of walking away after the “mandate banditry” allegedly perpetrated by the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission, he went to the Nigerian courts to seek redress and the American court to help with unravelling what state institutions charged with such responsibilities were unwilling or unable to do.
“We showed irrefutable evidence of gross irregularities, violence, and manipulations during the elections. We showed incontrovertible evidence that INEC violated the Electoral Act and deliberately sabotaged its own publicly announced processes and procedures in order to illegally declare Tinubu elected. The position of the Supreme Court, even though final, leaves so much unanswered,” he said.
Atiku called for constitutional amendments to allow, among others, for a six-year single term for the Presidency and to ensure the completion of the litigation on elections before the inauguration of the winner.
He stated, “As for me and my party, this phase of our work is done. However, I am not going away. For as long as I breathe I will continue to struggle, with other Nigerians, to deepen our democracy and rule of law and for the political and economic restructuring the country needs to reach its true potential. That struggle should now be led by the younger generation of Nigerians who have even more at stake than my generation.
“We must provide that all litigation arising from a disputed election must be concluded before the inauguration of a winner. This was the case in 1979. The current time frame between elections and inauguration of winners is inadequate to dispense with election litigation.”
culled: punchng.com
