Tofa to judiciary: Don’t abort our nascent democracy

A former presidential candidate under the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) and Kano-based businessman, Alhaji Bashir Othman Tofa, has warned the judiciary not to do anything that would abort “our nascent democracy, because it was the same judiciary that created the basis for the annulment of June 12, 1993.”

Speaking to Blueprint in Kano, Tofa urged the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to condemn the judgement delivered by Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Abuja Federal High Court on Monday on the 37 House of Representatives members in which the judge declared their seats vacant.
According to him, no court of law will sit in Abuja and declare their seats vacant.
He said: “If the intention of the PDP is to get at the five governors of the party that recently defected to the APC, then they are wasting their time; the governor of Bauchi state and former Governor Mahmuda Shinkafi of Zamfara state were elected on ANPP ticket and later joined the PDP and nothing happened to them; in any case, Atiku versus Obasanjo’s case has settled this.

“We, in the APC, will do everything possible to dislodge the PDP from power in 2015; no sane Nigerian will vote for a party or president that cannot give his people peace and security. Under this government, people that were killed are more in number than those killed during the civil war.”
He added: “With my experience, let us warn the judiciary, especially now that both the Chief Justice of the federation and President of the Court of Appeal are both women and are from the North. Let them use this opportunity to clean up the system before 2015; our democracy is 15 years old, we are not ready for any military rule, as such Nigerians should ignore the judgement of the Abuja Federal High Court.”