A leading civil Rights Advocacy group – HUMAN RIGHTS
WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has advised president Muhammadu Buhari
to be weary of the likes of his information minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed if the
president ever aspires to bequeath any enduring legacies of statesmanship and
patriotism to Nigerians and generation yet unborn by the time he ends his final
tenure in 2023 all things being equal.
The Rights group in the same vein has carpeted the
information minister for his irrational, undemocratic and unconstitutional
outburst following the contentious verdict of the presidential election
petition tribunal in Abuja which awarded legal victory to president Muhammadu
Buhari in the post-election litigation instituted by the 2019 presidential
candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former vice president
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
HURIWA has therefore cautioned president Buhari to
distance himself from the tragic line of thinking of his information minister
because in the considered opinion of the Rights group, it is inconceivable that
even a first year law student talk less an old lawyer like Alhaji Lai Mohammed
could utter such a bunkum and an absolutely thoughtless reaction which runs
contrary to civilized thinking and has depicted Alhaji Lai Mohammed as someone
who lacks the elementary knowledge of the fundamentals of election litigation
governed by adherence to the principle of Rule of law which the Nigerian
Constitution being the grund norm so recognized.
The Rights group stated that it is odd and totally
irrational that a serving minister and a lawyer for that matter can be quoted
as demanding public apology and/or prosecution of a petitioner in a highly
contentious electoral matter which for the time being has also been
contentiously and controversially resolved in favour of the president who is a
necessary respondent in the electoral litigation.
“Only a completely uneducated road-side political
fanatic who is delusional and cut off from the reality and dynamics of constitutional
democracy can be heard demanding that someone like the former vice president
Atiku Abubakar who chose the most civilized and constitutional route to seek
for legal redress over his perceived 'shortchanging' by independent national
electoral commission, should apologize for choosing to go to court of law”.
“We urge president Buhari to steer clear of Lai Mohammed
who is simply a crass political opportunist who is totally unmindful of the
need for president Buhari in the last stage of his prolonged political career
to focus on bequeathing enduring legacies of statesmanship and patriotism. Lai
Mohammed by this outlandish outburst has shown himself as a political who
stokes up crises for selfish aggrandizement”.
“What that empty rhetoric of Lai Mohammed shows is a man
with a warped idea of what is the best step to adopt to seek for justice. Would
Lai Mohammed had preferred that Atiku Abubakar never filed a suit but instigate
his supporters to revolt? Was Atiku not also called a foreigner by the lawyers
to the president in this same Tribunal? So what should Atiku do to President
his kinsman who for political exigency chose to deny his kinsman Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar and sought to deprive him of his citizenship by branding him a
foreigner?
HURIWA said that the erstwhilst vice president has the
constitutional right to institute any legal matter to democratically seek for
redress. A plethora of provisions of the extant electoral Act permits a
contestant in any election to challenge the outcome of any election even as the
Constitution in Section 6 and section 36(1) have said it all as follows:
Section 6: “(1) The judicial powers of the Federation
shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts
established for the Federation. (2) The judicial powers of a State shall be
vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts established,
subject as provided by this Constitution, for a State. (3) The courts to which
this section relates, established by this Constitution for the Federation and
for the States, specified in subsection (5) (a) to (1) of this section, shall
be the only superior courts of record in Nigeria; and save as otherwise
prescribed by the National Assembly or by the House of Assembly of a State,
each court shall have all the powers of a superior court of record.”
Section 36(1): “In the determination of his civil rights
and obligations, including any question or determination by or against any
government or authority, a person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a
reasonable time by a court or other tribunal established by law and constituted
in such manner as to secure its independence and impartiality.”
HURIWA therefore expressed disappointment that Lai
Mohammed could claim to be speaking for the Federal Government by wrongly
asking the People’s Democratic Party and its presidential candidate in the 2019
general elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to apologize to Nigerians for
willfully distracting the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari with a
frivolous election petition, instead of appealing the ruling of Wednesday’s
Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. The Rights group said the statement
attributed to Lai Mohammed is a disgraceful and repugnant to both good
conscience and rational thinking.
HURIWA recalled that the Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this in a statement issued on Thursday
from St Petersburg, Russia just as according to
him, instead of casting aspersion on the judiciary with their poorly-framed reaction
to the ruling of the Tribunal, the PDP and its
candidate should be thanking their stars that they are not being prosecuted for
coming to court with fraudulently-obtained evidence.
HURIWA dismissed these statements by Lai Mohammed as the
ranting of someone who does not wish President Muhammadu Buhari well but it's
remarkably shows that Lai Mohammed is disloyal to the President through his
show of disdainful sycophancy.
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