Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described as a face-saving measure, the decision by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to pull the brakes on its electioneering campaign over the suspension of Justice Walter Onnoghen, saying the PDP’s campaign never gained traction in the first instance. The said it has suspended its election campaigns for 72 hours after the CJN was suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari. “We are suspending our campaign for 72 hours,” PDP’s national chair Uche Secondus said in a statement, adding: “it is our hope that President Buhari will listen to the voice of all lovers of democracy the world over and restore democracy in Nigeria immediately and without qualifications,” saying Buhari’s action was in defiance to the Constitution and an “attack on democracy”.
But Lai Mohammed dismissed the PDP move, wondering why the PDP was crying more than the bereaved. Responding to reporters’ question in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital on Saturday, the Minister
quipped: ”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 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.
“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 was quoted as saying in a statement by Segun Adeyemi, Special Assistant to the Minister. On the constitutionality of the CJN’s suspension, Mohammed was also quoted as faulting those
Who accuse President Buhari of violating the Constitution, arguing 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 final determination of the cases against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Onnoghen is facing a six-count charge of non-declaration of assets when he became the chief justice of Nigeria. President Buhari said the allegations against Onnoghen were “grievous enough” to warrant his suspension, which was immediately followed by the swearing in of Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed as the acting chief justice of Nigeria. Buhari said in an address on Friday that “security agencies have since then traced other suspicious transactions running into millions of dollars to the CJN’s personal accounts.”
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.
