The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described as a face-saving measure the decision by the PDP to pull the brakes on its electioneering campaign over Justice Walter Onnoghen’s suspension, saying the PDP’s campaign never gained traction in the first instance.
Responding to reporters’ question in Ilorin, the Kwara
State capital, on Saturday, on the suspension of the PDP’s campaign,
the Minister said: ”Which Campaign? Their campaign was over a long time
ago. There is nothing to suspend. We said it that their campaign had
floundered. You can now see. What they are doing now is looking for a
face-saving way out of a dead and buried campaign.”
He wondered
why the PDP is crying more than the bereaved, and asked the opposition
party whether Justice Onnoghen is one of its members.
“And in any
event, let’s ask them this question: Is there something that they know
that we don’t know? Is there something between them and the suspended
CJN? Otherwise, we did not see why they should suspend their campaign
anyway, but I can understand that their campaign was bound to end this
way,” Alhaji Mohammed said.
He said while Nigerians have been
trooping out in large numbers wherever the President’s campaign ship
berths, the PDP supporters have been dwindling by the day.
On the
outcry by some people and organizations over Justice Onnoghen’s
suspension, the Minister said it’s troubling that those who are crying
foul over the suspension of the CJN have actually ignored the fact that a
serving Chief Justice not only amassed millions of dollars in his
account, but admitted that he forgot to declare same in his Assets
Declaration Form.
“For anybody who read Mr. President’s address
yesterday, two things stood out. The first is that additional evidence
has just been revealed that the suspended CJN refused to declare
millions of dollars in his possession. More worrisome is the fact that
when the suspended CJN was confronted with the petition that he failed
to declare his assets, he added that it was a mistake, that he forgot.
“Now,
I would have been a happier person if the same people who are now
crying tyranny and dictatorship could really address the issue raised by
the President, in his address on Friday, that addition investigations
have revealed that several millions of dollars were found in the CJN’s
account. And when the CJN was confronted with the original allegation,
he admitted that he forgot to make full declaration, and that it was a
mistake,” he said.
On the constitutionality of the CJN’s
suspension, he faulted those claiming that the President acted outside
of the Constitution, adding that in suspending Justice Onnoghen, the
President merely carried out an order of a court of competent
jurisdiction directing him to suspend the Chief Justice pending the
final determination of the cases against him at the Code of Conduct
Tribunal.
Source:- Politicsngr
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