Stop Intimidating Judges, Secondus Tells Buhari

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to look inwards at his stinking executive and stop the hostility and ill- treatment of the Nigeria’s judiciary.

Speaking against the backdrop of President Buhari’s unprovoked attacks on the former Chief Justice of the Federation (CJN), Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen on Tuesday while hosting some Yoruba leaders at the Aso Villa, Secondus said that the president’s aversion on the judiciary is becoming very apparent, dangerous and anti-thetical to democratic norms.

He accused the president of continuing to bemoan his past with the judiciary by displaying his unconcealed anger and unforgiving desire to take a pound of flesh on them.

The national chairman remarked that the motive behind the endless attacks on the judiciary by the President especially last Tuesday’s narration of his so-called ordeal with the courts was strategically designed to cow them into submission to his undemocratic desires.

Secondus said in a statement from his media office that even among Buhari’s audience where he was lampooning the judiciary were persons whose questionable source of wealth is not known yet he pretends not to be aware because it favours his political interest.

“We all know it as a fact that the motive of the President in his countless berating of the judiciary at the slightest moment is deliberately designed to frighten them, take away their confidence and force them to submit to his wishes by intimidation”.

Secondus described as preposterous and highly unacceptable the continuous ridiculing of the highly revered arm of government just because they did not dance to his selfish tune at some point.

He then urged all lovers of democracy in the country to rise up in defence of this critical arm of government, which gets bashing from an executive arm that seeks absolute power from the back door.

The PDP boss notes that the double standard apparent in the administration of President Buhari comes glaringly when he ceaselessly berates the Judiciary and turns blind eye to the monumental corruption going on in the executive arm.

The PDP chairman charged members of the Judiciary never to abdicate their responsibilities in the sustenance of democracy and refuse to be intimidated, but to insist on delivering justice in the land knowing that it is the only route to growth and development.