ACN Accuses PDP Of Using Lies, Innuendoes To Denigrate Judiciary

Lai-Muhammed1

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has accused the PDP of employing scare-mongering tactics and resorting to outright lies to denigrate the judiciary and interfere with the course of justice, following the party’s loss of Ekiti state and the impending outcome of the long-drawn Osun gubernatorial court case.

Lai Muhammed

In a statement issued in Benin on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said PDP officials have been orchestrating a media campaign aimed at dragging President Goodluck Jonathan into the fray, while at the same time singling out some personalities in the judiciary for attack.

”How else can we interpret a statement credited to Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State in which he tried to link President Jonathan’s fate in next year’s election to the outcome of the Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial election appeal process? Or the one castigating the President for congratulating Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti? Is Gov. Daniel now suggesting that the President should interfere with the judicial process just to save his own candidacy?

”When Gov. Daniel said ‘what happened in Ekiti is a big shame to all of us without exception’, is he talking about shame in the sense that his party, the PDP, was found to have rigged the election and the re-run, or that the presidency did not arm-twist the judiciary to keep Ekiti for the PDP at all costs? This is a careless statement and one most unbecoming of a self-avowed democrat like Daniel,”it said.

ACN also said that in an attempt to impugn on the integrity of Court of Appeal President Justice Isa Salami, over the judgement in Ekiti and the case in Osun, the PDP has been throwing out lies in the media that he is the father of Aina Salami, the Special Assistant on Lands to Gov.

Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, hence – they say – there is reason to worry about the Osun case.

”This is preposterous to say the least. Justice Salami is from Kwara while Aina is from Ikorodu in Lagos state and, until recently, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law University of Lagos. Couldn’t the PDP, with all its resources, have done a simple background check on Aina Salami to determine his true parentage? Or is the party insinuating that Justice Salami fathered an illegitimate son in the person of Aina? Is there a line that cannot be crossed in the name of dirty politics by the PDP?” the party queried.

It also described as a figment of PDP’s warped imagination the published statement that Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who heads the three-member

panel to hear the preliminaries in the Osun appeal, was appointed to the bench by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he was Governor of Lagos state.

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”Justice Kekere-Ekun was appointed to the bench in 1996, three full years before Asiwaju became governor of Lagos state. But in order to tarnish her image because she is on the three-member panel hearing the preliminaries of the Court of Appeal’s case on the Osun gubernatorial election, the PDP has resorted to all sorts of cheap lies. This is really sad,” the party said.

ACN said if the PDP had not been blinded by desperation, it would have known that the panel that will hear the appeal in the Osun gubernatorial

case is not the same as the three-member panel hearing the preliminary, and that in any case, five-member panels are usually constituted to hear such appeals, not three.

”When we raised an alarm that the desperate PDP stalwarts were seeking many options, including the ‘Sokoto Option’, to arrest the judgment of the Court of Appeal on the Ekiti gubernatorial re-run, PDP said we were crying wolf. Have we not been vindicated by the choreographed media attacks and outright lies by the PDP against the judiciary in recent times?” the party said.

ACN however restated its absolute confidence in the ability of the judiciary to rise above the unfounded allegations and accusations, being made by the PDP, to ensure that justice is done in all pending cases related to the 2007 general elections.

”The Ekiti case has proven beyond doubt that the judiciary still harbours men and women of unimpeachable integrity, who can always rise above

petty considerations to dispense justice without fear or favour,” the party added.

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