Igberetv reports that on Thursday, the spokesman for the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) Ikenga Ugochinyere during a press conference held in Abuja said the coalition would reject any moves to select justices to seat on Atiku Abubakar’s appeal as it alleged that the President Muhammadu Buhari regime is mounting much pressure on the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, to accept a list of some persons that are alleged to be members of the election petition appeal tribunal.
The presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar had approached the Supreme Court to appeal the judgment of the Court of Appeal which dismissed his petition and still declared President Buhari the winner of the election.
Ikenga said, “We have it on good authority that the APC-led federal government has been mounting undue pressure on the Chief Justice of Nigeria and indeed the entire court to accept a handpicked panel and jettison the age-long tradition of the court of selecting
the most senior justices of the Supreme Court to sit on the panel. The disquiet and bad blood caused by the APC in the Supreme Court now is a clear desecration of the highest temple of justice in the land.
The opposition and most Nigerians will not accept a handpicked panel, neither will the pronouncement of such panel command the respect and confidence of the people of Nigeria and we in the
opposition.”
“The Supreme Court is supreme and its words must be for the protection of the society and the people and the law. A grave error
was done at Appeal Court and the nation is waiting to see how a man who violated the Electoral Act and was supposed to have been disqualified managed to survive at the Appeal Court. That court failed in both the issues of law and issues of national interest.”
Recall that PDP and Atiku has filed an appeal on the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. The appeal was predicated on 66 grounds, which they believed Justices of the tribunal erred in their verdict on Atiku and PDP’s petition against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
