The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday lambasted the
President Muhammadu Buhari’s Presidency for allowing the Chairman
of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof
Itse Sagay cast aspersions on the integrity of the Justices of the
Supreme Court over the Court’s widely accepted judgment on Rivers
and Zamfara states elections.
The party stated that Prof. Sagay’s resort to “incitement and
hate language against the Supreme Court justices further exposes
the desperation of the Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives
congress (APC) to cow, blackmail, intimidate and attempt to annex
the judiciary, particularly, the Supreme Court, ahead of the
determination of PDP’s Presidential election petition, now before
the Court of Appeal.”
In a statement by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the
opposition party stated that Sagay’s comment has also revealed the
level of “condescension, derision and contempt the Buhari
Presidency and the APC have for the Justices of the Supreme
Court.”
The party said: “By declaring the upholding of justice by the
Supreme Court as a “national tragedy” and “unimaginable injustice”,
and suggesting that, “we (probably, his party members) should not
allow” the judgment as delivered, Prof. Sagay is calling for
anarchy and rebelliousness against our constitutional democratic
order and rule of law.
“Our party believes that such intentional attack on the
integrity of the Supreme Court can only emanate from feverish
apprehensions by the Buhari Presidency and the APC that they might
not have their way in the Presidential election petition, hence
this resort to blackmail.
“As a law-abiding party, the PDP holds the integrity of the
justices as well as the institution of the judiciary very high and
do not support this attempt by agents of the APC to clip and
sequester the judiciary for their partisan interests.
“We insist that there is no way Prof. Sagay, a professor of Law,
can justify his call for the rejection of the Supreme Court
judgment on Zamfara and Rivers states, as the judgments are in
protection of rule of law, democratic ethos as well as the wishes
and aspirations of the people over the attempt by the APC to take
control of their states through manipulations and awarding of
fictitious votes to their candidates.
“We therefore calls on the Supreme Court Justices to note the
machinations of the APC and continue to be firm in upholding
justice as has been demonstrated in the judgments on Rivers and
Zamfara states elections, which serve as lessons to political
parties to adhere strictly to rules of internal democracy in our
electoral processes.”