A pro-democracy group, Movement for the Advancement of Democratic Progress, has raised the alarm over plans by certain anti-democratic forces within the polity to use the courts to scuttle the Presidential elections slated for next week Saturday by getting a last-minute injunction to either postpone the polls or get the candidate of the All peoples Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, disqualified on flimsy grounds.
The group, in a release made available to The ELITES, alleged that agents loyal to the corridors of power have hatched a plan to use an Abuja Federal High Court under Justice Niyi Ademola to perpetrate the perfidious act. The group also alleged that the sum of N20bn has been budgeted to fund this anti-democratic project.
According to the statement, the surreptitious act is akin to the event of 22 years ago when an anti-democratic group, the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), aligned with the military junta of the day and an Abuja high court judge, Justice Bassey Ikpeme, to halt the June 12, 1993 poll barely 48 hours to the election.
“A scenario similar to that of 1993 is being played up by agents of the federal government in Abuja, using anti-democratic forces that are now going to the courts under different names and guise to attempt to either get the election postponed on the grounds that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is not ready or to get General Buhari disqualified “on flimsy excuses that can truncate our hard-earned democracy.”
The group said: “Like they did 22 years ago, the anti-democratic forces have identified a judge of an Abuja high court, Justice Niyi Ademola, through whom they plan to grant the perfidious injunction. Like Abimbola Davies of the inglorious ABN was used, another Yoruba man is being used this time around, who unfortunately is an ‘honourable’ member of the Bench. They have perfected yet another last-minute ambush on our democracy, just like they did in 1993, simply because the handwriting of an impending change in the country is crystal clear on the wall.”
The group claimed that Justice Ademola, whose wife is said to be a Permanent Secretary in Lagos State and whose daughters, Toke and Oyinkan, are scheduled to get married at elaborate weddings slated for March and April respectively, has become something of an easy target in the hands of those who do not appear to wish Nigeria well.
The ELITES gathered that the cases that sought to frustrate the defection of many of the federal lawmakers from the ruling party to the APC were taken to Ademola’s court where agents of government and the ruling party had utmost confidence that their bidding would be done. The release however added that the desperation of those who are afraid of losing the forthcoming elections has beclouded their judgement from appreciating the fact that things have changed significantly in Nigeria from what obtained in 1993.
“It is important to raise the alarm and sound a note of warning to those who are either afraid of free and fair elections or are blinded by filthy lucre that political awareness in the country has increased tremendously and the international community is watching. The already compromised judiciary cannot afford to have its name further dragged in the mud through the actions of one suspicious judge. He must be prevailed upon not to allow himself to be used to plunge Nigeria into unimaginable crises,” it stated.
The group, which insists that the mood of the country at the moment is unwavering about the need to proceed with the elections slated for February 14th and 28th, added that it was in possession of information about the reward being dangled at Justice Ademola if he does the bidding of his Abuja-based paymasters. It claimed that it would, at the appropriate time, further expose the suspected judge by revealing the details of his illicit deal with “the agents of destabilization.”
The group therefore urges every well-meaning Nigerian to raise their voices in lawful agitation against election postponement and to encourage INEC not to cave in under the enormous pressure of postponement that may not just further tarnish the image of the country but could also injure the peaceful coexistence of the federating units in Nigeria.