The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday condemned what it called a threat included in a written statement to the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) by lawyers to President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The remarks by the counsel for the President and Vice-President Kashim Shettima, led by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), were included in a final written address against the petition of the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his party.
The petitioners who are disputing Tinubu’s election on February 25 and his achievement of the constitutional requirement of 25% of votes cast in two-thirds of the country’s 36 states and the FCT are requesting the tribunal to dismiss Obi’s appeal.
Tinubu’s emergence in the February 25 election and his fulfilment of the constitutional requirement of 25 percent of the votes cast in two-thirds of the country’s 36 states and the FCT are asking the tribunal to dismiss the petition of Obi and LP. Tinubu and Shettima’s lawyers argued that Tinubu scored 25 percent of the lawful votes cast in the FCT and that any other interpretation would lead to chaos and anarchy in the country.
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In a statement, the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, said the remarks are a pre-emptive ploy to intimidate the judiciary and are subversive, an affront to democratic order, and an assault on the nation’s corporate life.
According to Ologunagba: “It is alarming and disturbing that the APC externalized to the public, their final written address in which they also threatened national peace if the Court upholds the clear provisions of Section 134 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) with regard to the mandatory and statutory requirements for which a Candidate in a Presidential election can be declared winner,” the statement said.
“The threats, either through Counsel or officials of the APC is calculated to intimidate and harass the Judiciary and indeed Nigerians.
“The PDP holds that the clear intent of the APC is to blackmail the Court and emasculate the independence of the judiciary to discharge its duties in accordance with the dictates of the law. This action is ostensibly to set the stage to orchestrate violent crisis in various parts of the country with the intention to further blackmail the PEPC.”
