Former special assistant to former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo on (Media & Publicity) Doyin Okupe has blasted the national chairman of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress over comments on judgments delivered by the Supreme Court.
Okupe who said Oyegun was beclouded by financial considerations said instead of educating supporters and voters on appropriate civil, honest and disciplined behaviour on election days “we used money, thuggery and security forces to perverse and undermine the electoral process. By so doing we directly, and inadvertently, transfer the power to choose political leaders, from the people, to the Law Courts.”
Read Doyin Okupe’s statement below:
The recent call by Chief John Oyegun the chairman of the APC asking for the probe of the Supreme Court Judges is a very sad development in our political history.
All men of virtue and goodwill should rise and condemn this extreme partisanship and flagrant display of political recklessness.
The supreme court is the highest organ of the judiciary in the country and we all, including the president of the country, are duty bound as patriotic citizens of sound minds to hold their views sacred and inviolable.
Their judgments cannot be favourable always and they can indeed be wrong sometimes because they are not infallible, since they are mortal men and women and not God Almighty who is the only ‘All Wise God’.
I do not speak as a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart but as a patriotic citizen of this country and a stakeholder in the Nigerian project. Politicians will come and go, just as my party the PDP and the governments it established have come and gone, after holding sway for 16 years.
But our country has remained and shall continue to remain. Hence we cannot and should not standby and allow transient office holders desecrate our hallowed institutions by bringing them to disrepute and public ridicule. Chief Oyegun had lamented that “All the highly resourceful states have gone to the PDP” and he subsequently threatened to take the matter up on behalf of his APC members from Rivers state With the president.
While Chief Oyegun in his parochial and mercantile political effusion is beclouded by financial considerations, the respected judges of the Supreme Court must adjudicate on the principles of Law, Equity and Justice.
Chief Oyegun and indeed all of us politicians are to be blamed for undermining the credibility of the electoral processed leading to a situation where virtually nearly all elections are not only contested but frivolously pursued to the Supreme Court.
Instead of educating our supporters and voters on appropriate civil, honest and disciplined behaviour on election days, we used money, thuggery and security forces to perverse and undermine the electoral process. By so doing we directly, and inadvertently, transfer the power to choose political leaders, from the people, to the Law Courts.
It is instructive to note that in the recently concluded presidential primaries in the United States of America, scarcely was any police officer or security agents noticed at the caucuses, neither did any act of violence occur at any point.
Nigerians with or without their political leaders must unite and stand up for the support of Justice and Rule of Law in our society and in all facets of our National life.
There is no doubt that there are elements of corruption within the Judiciary. But people in Government have all it takes to address the situation discreetly and appropriately without bringing down this great institution and the very last hope of the common man. Desecration and defamation of our judicial institutions in the public can only lead to hopelessness, unlawful self help and anarchy.
Government is never run on the pages of Newspapers or in murky arena of the social media.