A political activist and former deputy national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Timi Frank, has said that the ruling party has resulted into harassment and blackmailing Judges to do its biddings.
He, however expressed confidence in the Supreme Court Justices, saying the highest court in the land remains credible and truly the last hope of a common man.
Reacting to the Appeal Court judgement which denied Presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar access to inspect the controversial server used for the 2019 election, Frank said in a statement he released on Tuesday that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari “has resulted into using various security agencies to openly intimidate some of the judges into doing its bidding.”
The Bayelsa born activist made reference to media report quoting
the President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Paul Usoro, who declared that judges are afraid of performing their duties as expected due to fear and intimidation from the executive arm of government.
The report quoted the Senior Advocate of Nigeria as saying: “Our Judges are threatened, intimidated and blackmailed mostly by the executive arms of government and their agencies both at the federal and state levels.
“Our judges cannot deliver justice under a climate of fear and intimidation. Justice thrives where and when there is an independent judiciary. There can be no such independence when there is no security of tenure for our Judges. There can be no independence of the judiciary when our judges are intimidated, threatened and blackmailed by state agencies and their officials.
“There can be no independence of the judiciary when our judges are actively coerced by state officials to think and reason only in the manner that those officials and, presumably, government want them to think.”
But in his response the Atiku ally said “We are informing Nigerians that even the ruling of the Appeal Court has been written already but Nigerians respect and believe in Supreme Court.
“We hope that the Supreme Court, which is the main hope of Nigerians will have courage to stand by the people and decide the judgement based on the overwhelming evidences before the court and the verdicts of credible local and international organisations like European Union, National Democratic Institute and IRI among others.”
The statement cautioned the Judges to bear in minds that they are Nigerians as well and that they will all retire one day.
“The good thing is that the law of justice has never fail no matter how long. Those who succumbed to pressures to do evil now should not forget easily that result of such evil will permanently wait for them in future directly or indirectly.
“Nigerians are patiently waiting for Atiku to rescue them from the shackle of insecurity, hunger, unmployment, directionless government abd government of cabals,” Frank stated.
He called on Nigerians, especialy the political stajeholders, opposition party chieftains, Human rights activists and memvers of judiciary not to keep quiet into accepting wrong to be right if Nigeria is to move forward.
