— Disqualification portends danger – APC
—That’s another lie, says Fani-Kayode
By Ameh Ejekwonyilo, Bode Olagoke, and Samuel Ogidan, Abuja
Justice Ademola Adeniyi of the Federal High Court in Abuja has fixed today for ruling on applications brought by two parties seeking to be joined in a suit filed against the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen Muhammadu Buhari.
He fixed the date after hearing the submissions of counsel to two fresh parties, Olu-Ebun Adegboruwa and Chukwu Oshu, seeking to be joined as fourth and fifth defendants.
Ademola had, before fixing the date for ruling on the joinder application, delivered a short ruling in which he decided to hear all the processes filed before him together with the substantive suit.
He gave the ruling after listening to the submissions of Mr. Mike Ozekhome, the plaintiffs’ lead counsel, and Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, the defendants’ lead counsel.
Mr. Chukwunweike Okafor, one of the plaintiffs in the seven suits now consolidated, is seeking an order compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify Buhari from contesting the March 28 polls.
Okafor is urging the court to hold that Buhari’s claim in his Form CF001 that his West African School Certificate was with the Nigerian Army was false, thereby disqualifying him from contesting the election.
He therefore prayed the court to give an order compelling INEC to remove Buhari’s name and that of the APC from the list of persons and political parties eligible to contest for the office of President of Nigeria.
Okafor had joined Buhari, the APC and INEC as co-defendants in the suit.
Fagbemi, who led Buhari’s team of lawyers comprising six Senior Advocates of Nigeria, had argued in their preliminary objection that all the suits were targeted at stopping Buhari from participating in the polls.
He also argued that no court has the power to stop INEC from conducting the March 28 presidential election and urged the court to discountenance the plaintiffs’ suit.
Meanwhile, the APC has warned against any orchestrated, last-minute disqualification of Buhari in order to pave the way for an easy victory for President Goodluck Jonathan or even another postponement of the elections.
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said if it was true, as it is being widely speculated across the country, that the Jonathan administration has procured a judgement to disqualify the APC presidential candidate then it portends “a great danger for our country.”
The APC said in addition to other reasons, the six-week postponement of the elections may have been used by those who never wanted the polls to hold in the first instance to shop for “such a satanic judgement.”
It said: “Anyone who will disqualify a presidential candidate on the eve of an election can only have one and only one purpose for that: to trigger chaos and pandemonium across the country. Perhaps this is the reason for the deployment of troops across the country to crack down on possible protests and create confusion
“Then, those who orchestrated the disqualification will simply use what they expect to be angry reactions nationwide as an excuse to postpone the elections again, thus triggering a constitutional crisis, the end of which no one can predict.”
In his reaction, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, said that Lai Mohammed had lied about the speculated disqualification of Buhari.
Fani-Kayode said: “Lai Mohammed has told yet another dirty lie. What on earth is our business with Buhari’s court case?
“We know that he does not have a certificate and that he was not eligible to contest but we have moved on from there and we are ready to meet him in the field. The truth is that the APC are suffering from all manner of paranoia and they have lost touch with reality.
“They are the proverbial conspiracy theorists who are so consumed by their own morbid fears that they sleep in their wardrobes and under their beds every night. Each time someone knocks at the gates of their homes they wave their hands in the air, they shiver and scream and they say ‘the President has sent the security people to come and arrest us.’
“Frankly, they deserve to be pitied. They see government conspiracies everywhere and they have become prisoners of their own wild hallucinations.
“The truth is that we are not in the least bit interested in General Buhari’s travails at the court and we are not in a position to influence the decision of the judge or the outcome of the case one way or the other.
“The problem with the APC is that they cannot appreciate the difference between the judiciary and the executive.”