All Progressives Congress National Leader and Co-Chair of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has questioned former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s claim to being a democrat and defender of democracy, saying this rebirth as a defender of democracy must have taken place only a few hours ago.
He asked: “Where
was he (Atiku), his voice and action during Abacha’s suffocating maximum
rule? Was he not a member and cheer-leader of one of the five Abacha
parties aptly described then as five leprous fingers of Abacha? Did he
even have the courage to visit his mentor, late Major General Shehu Musa
Yar Ádua, in jail for fear of Abacha stopping him from running for the
governorship of Adamawa?
Asiwaju Tinubu also said contrary to
the impression created by the PDP presidential candidate (Atiku) that
the Chief Justice of Nigeria Walter Onnoghen was removed, he was only
asked to step aside for the allegations against him to be investigated
and could be reinstated if found not guilty.
The statement personally signed by Asiwaju is titled “REPLY TO ATIKU’S STATE OF THE NATION”.
It
reads: “The PDP’s presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku,
recently made comments regarding suspension of CJN Onnoghen. Atiku’s
release is entitled “State of the nation address”. I encourage everyone
to read it. In its disregard for the truth and patent
misrepresentations, it will go down in political history as a classic of
self-incrimination. Atiku thinks the piece exalts him. Instead it
evinces his penchant for wilful misstatement that make him unfit for the
office he now seeks and has always coveted.
In the
statement, he claims to have dedicated all his life to the defense of
democracy. Those of you who know him, and even those who don’t, know
this is not true. If all of his life has been dedicated to support for
democracy, then he is far too young to run for president; however, I
must congratulate him for having somehow managed to find or begin a
second life. This rebirth as a defender of democracy must have taken
place only a few short hours ago.
“His previous life of over
seventy years was one of skirting democracy and of blatant impunity in
attempting to enshrine reactionary government and installing an unjust
political economy on the backs of the people.
In his address,
he claims the nation has entered a difficult moment. To my dear and
good friend Atiku, I say the difficulty is not so much with the moment
but with your memory.
When you lorded over Nigeria in tandem
with President Obasanjo, there were myriad court orders mandating that
your government render to Lagos state the funds due it to improve the
lives of its millions of inhabitants. Instead, you gladly and without
dispute joined Obasanjo in utter disregard for these unambiguous legal
verdicts. In so doing, you demeaned the rule of law. You also readily
sacrificed the economic development and welfare of millions of innocent
people in Lagos just to gain some illicit political advantage that
proved to be fleeting and of no avail to you in the end.
“You
now speak of democracy and the need for executive restraint. But such
verbal finery never crossed your lips or traversed your pen when you and
Obasanjo improperly removed Senate Presidents more easily than a trendy
cad exchanges a pair of shoes or changes the subject of his false
affections. Your love for democracy is such that you were recently
observed apologising to the PDP for not rigging the Lagos 2003
gubernatorial polls as you did the polls in the other Southwestern
states.
Instead of repenting for rigging at least five states too
many, your expressed regret was that you had not rigged enough; that
you rigged one state less than the complete mauling of democracy your
party and your principal had mandated. Regarding such a destructive love
as this, I am sure democracy and fair elections would rather do
without.
“A few weeks ago in a televised broadcast you even
revealed to the people that your official policy envisioned the base
enrichment of your friends should you achieve the presidency.
I
must assume that your lifetime as a defender of democracy began after
this long record of unjust deeds and even after your latest statement of
intent to mould Nigeria into an oligarchy. If this is not the case and
if all these things you have done and said are consistent with your
current notion of democracy, then there is but one conclusion. The
democracy you now claim to support remains a rather strange breed of
democracy, such as to be nigh indistinguishable from the regressive,
rentier political economy you designed and foisted on Nigeria as the
crafty lieutenant of the bullish Obasanjo.
“Strange that you
would choose to depict the current situation so inaccurately as to stir
emotions unduly. You claim that CJN Onnoghen has been removed. However,
this is not so. He has been temporarily suspended. You and your advisors
should know and recognize the vast legal difference between
“suspension” and “removal.” Yet you persist in conflating the two in
what you say is a pursuit of justice. While true you may be in pursuit
of something. It is not justice.
If justice was your goal, you
would acknowledge that the CJN has only been temporarily suspended not
permanently removed. Thus, your recourse to saying that the president
violated the constitutional provision regarding the removal of a CJN is
inaccurate in that Buhari never intended to remove the CJN. What he has
done is to have the CJN temporarily get out of his chair so that the
serious matters against him can be heard by someone other than himself.
Should the charges show themselves to be wrong or unproven, the CJN will
be automatically reinstated as the head of the Nigerian judiciary.
However, for Atiku to state that the CJN should remain on seat while
credible and grave charges swirl around him is to put the entire
workings of the Supreme Court under a heavy cloud.
“It is
ironic that Atiku of all people throw such darts at President Buhari.
Buhari actually exercised considerable restraint in this matter. He has
reasonably balanced concerns about the integrity of the judiciary with
concerns for the individual rights of the accused. Nothing has been
taken from the CJN that cannot be restored if the facts warrant such
restoration. Thus, President Buhari conditionally suspended the CJN. By
doing so, this allows for the case to move forward without the CCT or
others fearing the CJN might use his position to unduly interfere with
proceedings. If the CJN is exonerated, then he will return to his
position. If not exonerated, then a more permanent discipline awaits
him.
This is an imminently fair and balanced approach,
especially given the fact that the constitution and other laws really do
not provide clear and unambiguous guidance in how to proceed in a case
whether the CJN is the defendant under this unique fact pattern. While
Atiku rails against Buhari because of this act of restraint, we can but
imagine the tack Chief Obasanjo and Atiku would have taken if they
presided over this situation. By now, they would have put CJN Onnoghen
in the stocks or shipped him off to that infamous farm in Ota where he
would have begun his new career in plucking poultry.
“It is
curious that Atiku would take up the marker of a jurist who has enjoyed
the sweet but hidden benefits of several million dollars of mystery
money passing through his secret bank accounts, Even when discovered,
these accounts held several hundred thousands of dollars in them.
Someone
in Atiku’s position would normally be wary of a judge thusly tainted. A
politician in Atiku’s position should more objectively be concerned
that the government would have been the source of the hidden funds or
that government would use the fact of the clandestine money as leverage
against the judge to make sure he did government’s bidding for surely
this a jurist highly compromised by pecuniary indiscretion. It is almost
unnatural that an opposition candidate would champion the soiled cause
of such a judge who seems to have sold something in exchange for the
money found in his vest’s secret pockets.
“Yet, Atiku now cries
the anguished cry of a man who thought he had won the lottery only to
find he had misread the last number on his claim ticket. Or perhaps
these are the tears of a man who thought he had invested in a sure deal
only to see the reason for the investment evaporate before his very
eyes. Now, Atiku and his cohort seek to turn their personal
disappointment into a burning national issue. They seek to manufacture a
constitutional crisis where none exists.
They said they
suspended their campaign because of this matter. Here, they are as
illogical as illogic can beget. By suspending their campaign, did that
mean they were permanently ending it? Of course not! That would be a
boycott or the permanent “removal” of the campaign. No, they have
resumed their campaign after temporarily suspending it. If they know the
meaning of suspend in this regard, only malign intent allows them to
feign ignorance to the meaning of the word “suspend” when applied to CJN
Onnoghen.
“There is no need to quake at the solitary incident of
the interim suspension of a justice pending the legal resolution of
serious criminal claims against him. If this matter is shorn of the
political trappings it has acquired, there is no fairer way to handle
the matter.
Atiku, I gather, would rather leave the man in
seat and allow the charges against him to go unattended. Or Atiku would
rather that the CJN preside over his own trial. Such is the logical
conclusion of Atiku’s position. It is an odd bravery that would lead
Atiku to stake such a position. If Atiku is as oddly courageous as he
now depicts, then let him venture a step further. Pray tell, let Atiku
tell us what good and precious thing he and the PDP rendered that they
cannot even countenance the temporary and conditional suspension of a
single jurist until the charges of illegality against the man have been
fully resolved in open proceedings conducted by his judicial peers.
“Atiku
claims to be a democrat and defender of democracy, but where was he,
his voice and action during Abacha’s suffocating maximum rule? Was he
not a member and cheer-leader of one of the five Abacha parties aptly
described then as five leprous fingers of Abacha? Did he even have the
courage to visit his mentor, late Major General Shehu Musa Yar Ádua, in
jail for fear of Abacha stopping him from running for the governorship
of Adamawa?
“Dare Atiku say what is really upsetting him and what
he really is hiding in his attempt to cloak his lifetime of
undemocratic reckonings in the swaddling of this much too belated
democratic second birth he now claims for himself”.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
January 29, 2019.,
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