The Presidency Monday accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its 2023 presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of raising false alarn over Apeal Court’s judgements in respect of the governorship elections in Plateau and Zamfara states.
A statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy Mr Bayo Onanuga also accused the PDP and Abubakar of assaulting the integrity of the judiciary and making “wild and libellous allegations against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
The statement reads: “In separate statements, the Peoples Democratic Party and the spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, its defeated Presidential candidate, threw caution to the winds as they assaulted the integrity of the judiciary and made wild and libellous allegations against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“In the wake of the poor run of some elected governors of the party at the appeal court, the PDP and former Vice President and his spokesman have become overtly desperate to hang their woes on President Tinubu and the judiciary, an important arm of government in Nigeria.
“In blaming others, Atiku and his party have failed to demonstrate whether they had done any soul-searching before going public with their weighty, specious, reckless and irresponsible allegations.
“While we do not hold brief for the judiciary, we urge Nigerians to discountenance the malicious allegations by the PDP and its candidate that President Tinubu as governor of Lagos, silenced the opposition and corrupted the judiciary and that he is planning to foist a one-party state on the country by appointing “loyalists” as Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).
“President Tinubu is a democrat to the core. We make bold to say that as president, he has not interfered with the judgment of the judiciary. We had witnessed how under his watch the PDP governor in Osun defeated the APC at the Supreme Court.
“Similarly, the PDP Governor in Bauchi also won his case in the Appeal court, beating the APC.
“President Tinubu is also not planning to impose a one-party state as Atiku has serially alleged and his party and spokesman have now parroted.
“These allegations are deliberately aimed at unnecessarily heating up the polity and causing disenchantment in our country.
They exist only in the imagination of the PDP and the former vice-president.
“Unlike Atiku Abubakar, President Tinubu’s record as a democrat par excellence and a strong advocate of the rule of law have been globally acknowledged.”
