Why Atiku is in court over presidential poll – Showunmi

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Segun Showunmi has said the party’s 2023 presidential candidate of, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, chose to challenge the election results at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal because he is a democrat.

Showunmi, who stated this in Abuja, on Sunday, said the call on the judiciary to be alive to its responsibility, as the country awaits the verdict of the President Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), is in order, as it is the last hope of the common man.

He explained that Atiku chose to challenge the declaration of President Bola Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC), as winner of the disputed presidential poll, because of his democratic disposition.

According to him, “Atiku has done no harm; he is a Democrat. The only thing Atiku has done is that he has chosen to remain a democrat. You know those who don’t care if the heavens fall while they are in opposition, Not doing it, as they did, is because he is a democrat. The entire world and even the ancestors that have gone are eagerly awaiting this judgment.

“Sometimes, the judiciary has a mediating responsibility to stabilize the society. However, the judiciary cannot stabilize the society against the perception by the generality of the people of that society. If it is the general opinion of the people that something is fundamentally wrong, the judiciary has to let the society understand that it is not called the last bastion of all persons for no reason.”

Showunmi added “you cannot be telling the society to endure when you have not cured illegality. Young people have the oxymoron, ‘Eyes on the judiciary’ but the truth of the matter is that the judiciary is not immune from what is going on in the society. Wives and children of judicial officers are not immune from what is going on in the society. Sometimes, the will of the people is by extension, the will of God.

“The only thing they can do not to stand against God is to rule in the best interest of their conscience and the mortality of their judgment because it will be quoted over time. The entire world is looking at Nigeria and they are not going to be ashamed to do the right thing. If democracy fails, we can patch it up with the judiciary but if the judiciary fails, that society has failed.”