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Justice Salami: PDP says Tinubu is a hypocrite looking for lost relevance

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday reacted to the statement by the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Bola Ahmed Tinubu on … Continue reading Justice Salami: PDP says Tinubu is a hypocrite looking for lost relevance


Former Governor of Lagos State and the leader of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Bola Tinubu

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday reacted to the statement by the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the issue of the reinstatement of the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami.

Mr Tinubu had in a press statement over the weekend said that President Goodluck Jonathan’s “tardiness in” acceding to the National Judicial Council’s (NJC’s) request for Justice Salami’s reinstatement is a brutal attack on the golden principles of the rule of law and just existence in a democratic society.

He had said that the President’s action has confirmed the popular belief that Justice Salami’s case is more political than legal. He had described the president’s action as a coup against the rule of law.

Reacting to Mr Tinubu’s comments, the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh in a statement called the ACN leader “a hypocrite in a desperate agenda to re-shape facts.”

“The desperation of the Action Congress of Nigeria which peaked today with an unreflecting statement from its leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu amounts to a frontal attack on both the President and our great Party and is further confirmation that ACN has a different agenda in the Justice Salami saga than its touted role as an evangelist of the rule of law,” Mr Metuh said.

“For Tinubu to describe as a coup on the rule of law, the engagement of due process in the resolution of Justice Salami’s re-instatement, sketches a graphic effigy of a hypocrite in a desperate agenda to re-shape facts.

“This level of desperation raises a gigantic question mark on the sincerity of the ACN and the integrity of its leadership especially in the background of insinuations that four states were delivered to the Party via judgments that were ‘more political than legal’ to use Tinubu’s very words. We therefore insist that it is high time Tinubu told Nigerians his political relationship with Justice Salami that has driven him and his party to cry more than the bereaved.”

The PDP insisted that “the Salami case is purely a legal issue which Tinubu is least qualified to delve into.”

“Justice Salami can only be reinstated when all pending cases relevant to the matter are fully resolved, and therefore we expect a measure of decorum from all parties, except for those bent on attacking the President to score cheap political goals or politicizing the issue in order to demonize the ruling party”.

“When Tinubu harps on the rule of law, one is quick to ask why he was slumbering away while the Lagos ACN government state threw the law to the dogs in disengaging the striking Lagos doctors; an issue that is threatening to boil over to other states. Is Tinubu playing Nero?

“Can Tinubu recall how many Nigerians were brutalized and maimed by the security agents brought out by the Lagos state Government to quell the Lekki Toll Gate protest? Was that the rule of law?”

Mr Metuh said that “it is obvious that Tinubu and his Party are running out of campaign ideas thus, the reason for the unsubstantiated allegations and outright fabrications. We challenge them to improve on their manifesto and concentrate on selling their programme to the electorate.”