*Don’t destabilize state, group warns
In what seemed yet another blow on the Nigerian judiciary, a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yusuf Gadgi has boasted that Justices of the Supreme Court work for his party, the All Peoples Congress (APC).
Gadgi’s disclosure came on the heels of recent scathing remarks by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) respectively, on the Supreme Court’s dismissal of their petitions challenging the declaration of Sen. Bola Tinubu as winner of the February 2023 presidential election.
The Plateau State Governorship and House of Assembly Petition tribunal, as well as the Court of Appeal had in a chain of rulings, sacked several state and federal lawmakers of the PDP in the State replacing them with APC candidates. All the rulings, which cited pre-election disputes in the PDP, had sent fear in the PDP camp.
Even though Governor Caleb Mutfwang, who was nominated by the same PDP executive which the courts said was illegal, survived at the tribunal, PDP faithful have expressed worry that APC might use the Supreme Court to oust the governor.
Fuelling speculation, Gadgi, who represents Pankshin/Kanam/Kanke Federal Constituency had at a party rally, which had the APC governorship candidate, Nentawe Yilwada said his party was lying in wait for Governor Mutfwang at the Supreme Court, boasting, “they will know whom we know.”
“We have gone to the Appeal court. And the final destination is the Supreme Court. And we will meet there. That is when we will know whom they know, and they will know whom we know, ” Gadgi boasted, amidst deafening applause from the crowd.
The judiciary, particularly the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, have recently come under scrutiny following a number of happenings.
At the Senate valedictory session early June, Adamu Bulkachuwa, who represented Bauchi North in the red chamber, threw a bombshell, revealing how he used his wife, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, then President of Court of Appeal to help his colleagues in the Senate win their legal battles.
Late last month, retiring Justice of the Supreme Court, Dattijo Muhammad, in a brutal criticism of the “absolute powers” of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), faulted the composition of the panel that gave the judgements that affirmed President Bola Tinubu’s election.
However, in what seemed an attempt at damage control, Gadgi on Wednesday distanced himself from the judicial tsunami which has seen at least seven People’s Democratic Party (PDP)- elected federal lawmakers from Plateau State lose their seats to the opposition APC.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the President of the Court of Appeal is not a member of the panel handling the appeals from Plateau State and there is nowhere it can be imagined that she lobbied their justices to give the sound verdicts that have been given on the appeals before them, ” noted Gadgi.
He, however was silent on his comments on the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the Coalition of Middle Belt Groups has cautioned politicians in the country against plots to destabilize Plateau state through unscrupulous court judgements.
The convener of the group, Dr Ben Omale who spoke with newsmen in Abuja said it is expedient to draw the attention of Nigerians and the entire world to the accelerating efforts by anti-democratic forces to destabilize Plateau State and, on a larger scale, the entire Nigeria.
Omale condemned recent rulings by the Court of Appeal that decimated the Plateau State Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the National Assembly.
He said such politicians have described the rulings that deprived Plateau state of its seats in the National Assembly as democracy at work or the judiciary being the last hope of the common man.
“Such commendations of the robbery carried out against the Plateau PDP are emanating from the beneficiaries of the crime, viz the All Progressives Congress (APC), particularly the Plateau state chapter.
“Other non-APC members that have commended the rape of democracy are people who do not have the benefit of the full details of the fundamentals at play at the backend. Our belief is that people in this category and other Nigerians should be made aware of the dangerous script playing out in Plateau State, which has implications for the rest of the country. We call this script dangerous because, from our findings, Plateau State is merely being used as a pilot by the closet fascists who are well on their way to making Nigeria into a one-party dictatorship” he said
Omale said the middle belt would have waited for their plot to enter into more advanced stages before confronting them with all available legal tools at the disposal of Nigerians but he said therein lies the new problem that must be urgently tackled collectively.
“They have compromised the judiciary to the point that some of the colluding judges in the Court of Appeal and other parts of the judiciary are almost card-carrying members of the APC. This compromised status turned out to be defining in the ruling that they gave to steal the PDP’s National Assembly seats.
“Gentlemen of the press, we expect that you will naturally want to know how the foregoing concerns us. Our concern is the danger posed to democracy when a House of Representatives member, Yusuf Gagdi, with his allies in the judiciary, has constituted himself into the undertaker that will bury the judiciary in Plateau state while acting as pallbearer of our truncated democracy at the national level. It is on record that Gagdi openly boasted about how the APC owns the judiciary.
“He categorically said the APC has been to the Court of Appeal and that the final destination is the Supreme Court and that the PDP will realize that the APC knows judges even in the highest court of the land. He specifically said “We will meet there (Supreme Court). That is when we will know who they know, and they will know who we know. Also note that Gadgi swore with the grave of his father to make the APC governorship candidate, Nentawe Yilwatda the state governor even when he clearly lost to the incumbent Governor Caleb Mutfuwang of the PDP.
“So, with the criminality that has been displayed in using the judiciary to steal the National Assembly seats held by the PDP, Gadgi’s avowal to abuse the Supreme Court in achieving his party’s aim, his oath that he must make Nentawe the state governor at any cost, and the abusive deployment of Federal Might against the Plateau, it is apparent that he and the APC will not stop at this phase of usurping the people’s mandate.
“We had ignored earlier intelligence that the judiciary would be used to hijack the mandate expressed by the people of the Middle Belt in choosing their national representatives, but we now see things differently now that the judges have shown that they are aligned with the APC. This development has now convinced us that the other aspects of the plot for APC to take over Plateau State by any means are no longer assumptions but realities that must be urgently confronted in the interest of democracy, peace, and security across Nigeria.
“In specific terms, we have become aware that the failure of Gadgi and his co-travelers to steal the governorship seat at the Supreme Court will make them resort to hijacking the Plateau State House of Assembly to illegally move against the governor. They further plot to use this to trigger insecurity that will render the state ungovernable such that there will be a compelling breakdown of law and order.
“What should scare Nigerians and the world at large, gentlemen of the press, is that they plan to implement this playbook in other non-APC states in order for the party to control all the states of the Federation in the next eighteen months. In this, the Middle Belt is particularly endangered because we will bear the brunt of any resulting insecurity from this criminal experiment they are performing with Nigeria’s democracy.
“Consequently, we want to place on record our disappointment that Gadgi, a son of the Middle Belt, decided to make himself an anti-Middle Belt crusader, willing to set his heritage ablaze to satisfy fascists’ agenda. We hope that he will in his own interest and the good of our people walk back from this destructive path he has chosen” he stated.
Going further, Omale said: “We, therefore, in clear terms, warn Yusuf Gadgi that the Coalition of Middle Belt Groups, and other Nigerians will hold him responsible for any instability precipitated in the Middle Belt because of the criminal plot that he is implementing to make his party control Plateau State by all means. Nigerians and the world must also hold him to account should the country’s democracy fail on account ⅞of the way he has recruited the judiciary into his plot.
“The Coalition of Middle Belt Groups demands that Gadgi and his allies cease and desist forthwith while allowing institutions in the country to follow their constitutionally recognized processes without being hijacked to work for the interest of a mutant political leaning. We called on the good part left in the judiciary to immediately start the process of restoring the independence of the judiciary by investigating Gadgi’s assertions of owning the courts, find out the judges who colluded with him, and sanctioning them appropriately” he said.
